Purchase card repayments by Senator Ozouf (FOI)

Request

This Freedom of Information (FOI) request is in relation to a previous request regarding ministerial purchase cards:

Ministerial purchase card (FOI)

A

It is noted that the value of a number of purchases on the card were refunded. For each item, please provide the date (or approximate date ie month and year, if this is not possible) that it was refunded.

B

Please advise whether these refunds were carried out voluntarily or upon request.

C

Please provide the amount of interest accrued, approximately, on each of the refunded purchases.

D

Please advise whether the Accounting Office was aware that Senator Ozouf had made a number of personal purchases. If so, what was done? If not, why? And when did this occur?

E

Please advise whether Senator Ozouf was / will be subject to disciplinary action regarding the use of his States purchase card?

Response

A, B, D and E

The response to this question is, at this time, qualified exempt under Article 36(1) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 due to an ongoing review. Following the review, and subject to Regulation 1(a) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 with a specified cost limit of £500 (12.5hrs), we will attempt to provide this information before 30 September 2017 and it will be presented in a revised update to the following FOI request:

Ministerial purchase card (FOI)

As we are applying a qualified exemption it is necessary for us to consider whether the public interest is better served by withholding the information requested and it is not outweighed by the public interest in disclosure. On balance, it is our view the public interest is better served by ensuring the information provided is accurate and complete, which will only be the case once the review is concluded.

C

No interest was accrued.

Exemptions applied

Article 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.