Jersey College for Girls business case (FOI)

Request

Jersey College for Girls were recently awarded a £100,000 from the Investment Appraisals Board to fund their international programme pilot. Please could I see the business plan that accompanies the application.

Response

The Treasury Minister approved the transfer of up to £100,000 to fund the pilot International programme, which is run by the JCG Foundation. The JCG Foundation is a separate body from the school and technically not defined as a public authority under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Having carefully reviewed the summary business case, we consider that some of the detail contained could harm the commercial interests of the JCG Foundation. Therefore, Article 33 (b) (Commercial Interests) has been applied to the redacted sections within the document.

The requested summary business case (with redactions) is attached below:

summary business case (redacted)

Prejudice / Public Interest Test

Article 33 (b) allows an authority to refuse a request for information where its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information). Whilst we accept that the public may have an interest in the details of the programme, we believe that the financial values and marketing proposals are commercially sensitive. The success of the scheme is dependent on recruiting prospective international students and the release of the redacted data would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the JCG Foundation.

Article applied

Article 33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).