Pan-Island Commissioner for Standards (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States Greffe and published on 09 February 2023.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

Please provide all information held using the following phrase - “Pan-Island Commissioner for Standards”.

The timeframe is 1 June 2022 to 21 December 2022. 

I wish to see all email correspondence and reports on this issue.

The names of individuals associated for all material held are:

• Lisa-Marie Hart
• William Millow
• Andy Jehan 
• Karen Shenton-Stone
  

Response

A search has been undertaken using the requested parameters. No emails were located for the Connétable of St. John. Emails located for the other named individuals are attached and have been redacted in accordance with the relevant Article  of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the “Law”) detailed below. 

No hard copy correspondence was located.

Please note that emails sent by States Members in their private, i.e., non-ministerial or committee capacity would not have fallen under the remit of this search, as States Members in their private capacity are not considered a scheduled public authority for the purposes of the Law. 

Articles applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

3)      In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.

Article 28 -States Assembly privileges

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if exemption from the obligation to disclose it under this Law is required to avoid an infringement of the privileges of the States Assembly.

(2) Except as provided by paragraph (3), a certificate signed by the Greffier of the States certifying that exemption is required to avoid an infringement of the privileges of the States Assembly is conclusive evidence of that fact.

(3) A person aggrieved by the decision of the Greffier of the States to issue a certificate under paragraph (2) may appeal to the Royal Court on the grounds that the Greffier did not have reasonable grounds for issuing the certificate.

(4) The decision of the Royal Court on the appeal shall be final.

Article 33 - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public Interest Test

Article 33 (b) is a prejudice-based exemption. That means that in order to engage this exemption there must be a likelihood that disclosure would cause prejudice to the interest that the exemption protects. In addition, this is a qualified exemption and consideration must be given to the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

It is considered that providing information could prejudice the commercial interests of the Government of Jersey and/or third parties. There may be public interest in the commercial information however it was considered that this is outweighed by the potential for commercial and/or financial damage. 

This response has been issued on behalf of the States Greffe. The States Greffe is responsible for the information held by (and on behalf of) both itself and the States Assembly.  Neither the States Assembly nor the States Greffe form part of the Government of Jersey and the Government was not involved either in the examination and retrieval of any information required for this response, nor in the drafting of the response itself.