Work licences for the agriculture and tourism industries (FOI)

​Request 

Could you let me know the following?

A

How many work licenses for registered employment have the States of Jersey issued in the last 18 months?

B

To whom have they been issued?

C

How many of these recipients are working in the agriculture & tourism industries?

Response

A

This information is absolutely exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the information is accessible by other means. See link below for published data for Quarter 1 (January to March 2017).

Each quarter we publish data on staffing permissions that have been requested, granted, refused and removed. This data is available for 2016 by using the year filter at the same link.

Population Office figures for January to March 2017

We are also applying an Article 36 exemption as the information is intended for future publication. Quarter 2 data will be published shortly online in the same location as existing published data.

B

This information is considered as commercially sensitive and is therefore exempt under Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. It is also deemed to be exempt under Article 34.

C

We are not able to provide this data as individuals are not recipients of licenses.

Under the Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law 2012, (CHWL) Registered permissions are a condition of the business license that permits a maximum number of individual whose status is Registered to work in the business. This maximum may be nil.

Under the CHWL application is only required by a business should it require additional Registered permissions. Thus a business can operate within its maximum number of Registered permissions (which may be nil) without application for additional Registered permissions.

Thereby, there is no direct link between the number of Registered permissions granted for a defined period of time and the number of individuals working within a business or sector.

However, the Labour Market Reports published by the States of Jersey Statistics Unit provide information on the number of jobs filled in a given sector. See the link below:

Labour market report December 2016

Note that there no such category as Tourism. Tourism activity is captured under the heading of Hotels, Restaurants and Bars as per the Labour Market Report.

Information specifically for the Agriculture sector has been provided by the Jersey Statistics Unit.

Numbers are rounded independently to the nearest 10 as per the Labour Market Report.

Exemption(s) applied

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.

36 Information intended for future publication

(1) Information is qualified exempt information if, at the time when the request for the information is made, the information is being held by a public authority with a view to its being published within 12 weeks of the date of the request.

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

(a) of the date when the information will be published;

(b) of the manner in which it will be published; and

(c) by whom it will be published.

(3) In this Article, “published” means published –

(a) by a public authority; or

(b) by any other person.

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).

34 The economy

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice –

(a) the economic interests of Jersey; or

(b) the financial interests of the States of Jersey.