Support for staff with long-term sickness (FOI)

​Request

A

How many members of staff within the States of Jersey have been supported to return to work in the last two financial years (April 2016 to present day)?

B

How many have resigned their post due to illness?

C

How do the States of Jersey support those with long term health conditions and disabled / unclassified disabilities to return to work?

D

Do they seek support from occupational therapists?

Response

A

This activity takes place at departmental level and will be determined by the manager and employee in a manner most appropriate to need. The information requested is not held in a searchable format. To identify the data requested would involve a review of each employee’s personal file which would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

B

Information is not held on which employees resigned their post specifically due to illness. There is no specific category for employees who resign for this reason. In the period in question there were 77 ill health early retirements.

C

Employees with long-term health conditions or disabilities are supported on an individual basis appropriate to the condition that is presented. The support focuses on advice received from an independent Occupational Health Service and will take into account recommended reasonable adjustments (physical and psychological). In addition, a 24/7 employee assistance programme, which is open to both employees and their immediate families, is available to provide advice and guidance via a telephone advice line.

D

The Occupational Therapy Service is run by the General Hospital in Jersey and utilised by patients as part of a recovery programme recommended by GPs and hospital consultants. This service is available to the wider island population including States employees.

Article applied

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 an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.