Laurence development correspondence (FOI)

Request

A

I would like to request all correspondence between members of the States and [name redacted] and / or representatives of Palladium Group relating to the two-year lease of the Laurence development in St Helier by the government's Central Accommodation Service. 

B

I would further like to request details of the process by which Jersey Property Holdings selected and leased the Laurence from Palladium Group. ​

Response

A and C

A search of the email back up system (Cryoserver) has been conducted which holds copies of all emails sent and received by Government of Jersey staff.

In order to enable a response to your request within the 12.5 hours permitted to be provided, the searches of relevant accounts using the search criteria "The Laurence", "[name redacted]","Palladium", "Laurence Apartments", "Laurence Apts", "Palladium Group" for the requested period were used.

Copies of the relevant emails are attached.

Personal information has been redacted in accordance with the Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Redactions have also been applied in accordance with Article 33(b) (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Article 33 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

Correspondence_Redacted.pdf​

B

The Laurence Apartments were sourced by the Delivery Unit in July 2023 to provide additional temporary housing for keyworkers employed within the departments for Children, Young People, Education and Skills, and Justice & Home Affairs in line with the keyworker policy.

The Government of Jersey’s relocation agents identified that the Laurance Apartments were available to accommodate the priority keyworkers that urgently needed to be relocated to the island.

The information requested is exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the information is accessible on www.gov.je  within the previous Freedom of Information response linked below.

The Laurence development tender document (FOI)

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 that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

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 is a qualified exemption and a public interest test should be carried out by the Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) to determine whether the information should be released.

It is in the public interest to be made aware of any lease terms and rental fees received by the Government of Jersey regarding this site.

However, the release of the lease conditions and rental information could potentially disadvantage the tenant and the Government of Jersey’s ability to retain commercial advantage in any future lease negotiations.

Therefore, it is considered that the likely prejudice to the tenant and to the Government of Jersey, should this information be released, outweighs the argument that the release is in the public interest.​