Future Hospital email correspondence (FOI)

​Request

Please kindly provide all emails involving Senators Gorst, Maclean and Ozouf and Deputy Kristina Moore mentioning the word ‘hospital’ or with content pertaining to the old and future hospitals during the period of Wednesday 17 May 2017 to Friday 26 May 2017.

Response

The email correspondence has been reviewed and, where appropriate, exemptions have been applied. The redacted correspondence is contained in the PDF document below:

Email correspondence

The link below is the published version of the attachment to emails 38 and 86.

Statement to be made by the Minister of Treasuty and Resources on Tuesday 23 May 2017

The attachment to email 53 is provided in the following PDF document:

Email 53 attachment 

The scheduled public authority (SPA) and certain Ministers have received email correspondence through subscriptions and / or membership of media associations. This type of information has been the subject of comment in guidance issued by the UK Information Commissioner. That guidance provides that information generated by third party online resources is not considered to be held by the public authority. Given the information in question is controlled by another person and the SPA has not, at its own discretion, created, recorded, filed or removed the information, the SPA do not consider this information to be held for the purposes of Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the FOI Law).

The names of some staff members have been redacted under Article 25 of the FOI Law. Each redaction has been assessed and consideration given to the persons role, perception of their personal detail being provided in a public domain, how that would affect them personally and the justification for providing or withholding it. If it is considered they have an expectation that their personal detail would not be released and that any release may cause them unnecessary distress and anxiety, their personal details have been redacted. It is considered that to release this information would breach the first data protection principle as it would not be fair to disclose this type of information into the public domain. Furthermore, it is considered, in the absence of consent that, on balance, disclosure is not supported by paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 of the FOI Law, thus none of the legitimising conditions for processing having been met.

Article 28 of the FOI Law has been applied to attachments to emails 27 and 29. This article is an absolute exemption. The document will be published once complete.

Attachments on messages 2, 17, 23, 28, 72, 75, 82 have been withheld under Article 35 of the FOI Law; Formulation and development of policies.

In the period leading up to the debate on the funding for the new hospital, Ministers and senior members of staff need to assess the various options available to them. The authority is therefore withholding the release of a number of emails relating to the formulation and development of policy by the SPA under Article 35 of the FOI Law. Following assessment, the SPA has to 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 SPA needs to retain the ability to consider and reconsider the assumptions and evaluations raised for the purpose of good government. For this reason it is considered it would not be in the public interest to disclose this information. The Government needs a safe space in which to rigorously explore and develop the best policy possible.

Once a policy is formulated and published, the public interest in withholding information relating to its formulation is diminished, however, the use of the exemption can be supported if it preserves sufficient freedom during the policy formulation phase to explore options without that process being hampered by some expectation of future publication.

Exemptions applied

Article 3 - Meaning of information held by a public authority

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority

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 2005.

(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 2005; and

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

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 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.