Jersey Tourism Shadow Board and Visit Jersey Board meetings minutes 2013 to 2015 (FOI)

​​​Request

I would like minutes of the Jersey Tourism Shadow Board and Visit Jersey Board meetings held between January 2013 and January 2015.

Response

We do endeavour to provide information wherever possible. However, in this instance we do not hold the information requested.

We do hold full transcripts of board meetings of the Tourism Shadow Board. However, in respect of the transcripts an absolute exemption under Article 26 of the Law applies. Information is exempt from disclosure if it was obtained from another person and the disclosure of the information to the public by the scheduled public authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other person. The nature of the tasks the Tourism Shadow Board was set required them to ascertain the views of all parts of the industry. This could only be achieved by allowing those who wished to express their views to the board to do so in confidence. 

Visit Jersey Limited (which is not at present a scheduled public authority for the purposes of the Law) will commence operation at the end of March 2015 and the activities of the Tourism Shadow Board will cease. By the end of May 2015 a full set of minutes (from the transcripts) for the Tourism Shadow Board covering the entire duration of its operation will be produced and published on gov.je. The task of extracting the information from the transcripts to produce the minutes is a significant undertaking and to produce them any earlier would exceed the cost limit in Article 16 of the Law.

Exemptions

Article 26    Information supplied in confidence

Information is absolutely exempt information if: 
(a)     it was obtained by the scheduled public authority from another person (including another public authority); and

(b)     the disclosure of the information to the public by the scheduled public authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other person.

Article 16    A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1)    A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed any fee of an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of Article 15.