Freedom of Information (FOI)
Freedom of Information legislation gives you the right to access information held by public authorities. Under FOI, everyone has equal rights to access this information. All you have to do is ask.
How to make an FOI request
Responding to your FOI request
If we hold the information you request and its release is not exempt under the law, we will give the information to you.
When you make an FOI request using our online form, you'll receive a response within 20 working days. Requests submitted by email may incur a delay.
There may be a few exceptions to this, for example a school may take longer to respond if you ask for the information outside of term time.
Our response to your FOI request
How FOI can help you
Access to information under FOI can:
- help to inform you of how the government and public authorities work in Jersey
- allow you to take part in debate about issues that may affect you or your family
- help you find information to develop ideas or inform your business decisions
Our commitment to FOI
We have introduced FOI legislation to help make public information available and accessible to you.
We're committed to complying with the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.
We will be more accountable and transparent in the way we operate and make decisions under FOI legislation.
We will manage information within the framework of FOI, Data Protection and Public Records legislation.
FOI legislation is designed to make us more accountable and transparent in the way we operate and make decisions.
Information, training, operating policies and procedures will be available to States employees.
Approving your FOI request
It is the legal responsibility of individual departments, as scheduled in the Law, to finalise and approve the response to your FOI request. Each FOI response is approved by a relevant senior departmental official (usually the Chief Officer for a department).
In the event of the approver having an interest in the response, for example, if it relates to their correspondence, they should seek advice from the central information governance team as to whether they should recuse themselves.
Ministers are also provided with responses to requests with a higher reputational risk or anticipated public interest. Ministers are the legal entity on whose behalf data is processed by their departments.
Responses are then provided to the Central FOI Unit, who will provide the response to you.
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