Government of Jersey

Single mother benefits (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by States of Jersey and published on 26 October 2018.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

One reads of young women living at home with their parents and working on the minimum wage discovering that if they fall pregnant, help is available from Social Security both for accommodation and income support.

What steps are taken to secure the contribution from the father of the child before the burden falls to the tax payer?

Can you confirm how many young people need to be housed as a result of pregnancy for each year, regardless of who they live with when falling pregnant?

Response

Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied as this information has been supplied in response to a previous Freedom of Information (FOI) request and is therefore accessible to the applicant by other means. The previous FOI response can be viewed at the following link:

Child maintenance (FOI)

The following table identifies the number of women under 25, with no previous accommodation in their own right, who had an Income Support claim opened within six months of the birth of their baby and who were provided with financial support for their accommodation because they needed to be rehoused;

	Without maintenance on the claim	With maintenance added to the claim
2013	<5	<5
2014	6	<5
2015	7	7
2016	<5	<5
2017	<5	<5
2018 to end of September	<5	<5

Numbers of 5 or less have been shown as <5. Disclosure control has been applied to the data in order to protect the identity of individuals, in accordance with Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Exemptions 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.

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.