Moving services from Overdale to the old Les Quennevais school (FOI)

Request

Please confirm all the details of the plan for the decanting of Departments and services from Overdale Hospital to Le Quennevais school in January 2022 and the plan for their return to the Our Hospital at Overdale in 2026 when the Our Hospital opens, including those scheduled to be outsourced to Primary Care under the Jersey Care Model, itemising the proposed delivery organisation for the outsourced departments and services.

Response

A supplementary Functional Brief has been developed which provides details of the decant plan for services currently located at Overdale which will relocate to the former Les Quennevais School site. The supplementary Functional Brief also contains a list of services which will not return to Our Hospital at Overdale, once construction is complete.

This document was published on Friday 16 April and can be found in the following link. Therefore, Article 23 (Information accessible to applicant by other means) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Overdale Decant Functional Requirement Brief

Plans for any changes to service delivery models as a result of the Jersey Care Model are currently in development and therefore, the formulation of any plans Article 35 (Formulation and development of policies) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

1. Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

2. A scheduled public authority (SPA) that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

Please note that Article 23 is an absolute exemption, and therefore does not require a public interest test.

Article 35 Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

Article 35 is a qualified exemption, which means that a public interest test has to be undertaken to examine the circumstances of the case and decide whether, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Although there is a need for transparency, accountability, financial and good decision making by public authorities this information relates to an ongoing situation.

The following considerations were taken into account:

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure

• disclosure to the public fulfils an educative role about the early stages in policy development and illustrates how government engages with parties for this purpose

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information

• engagement is in progress with stakeholders whose feedback is helping to shape the development of the plan

• release of information which is not as yet finalised may undermine the engagement process and may cause anxiety for some stakeholders

• release of the information at this stage might generate misinformed debate in the wider public in areas where future options have yet to be finalised

• this would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately

Taking into account the various factors, the SPA decided it would not be appropriate to release incomplete information at this point.