Broad Street business case (FOI)

​Request

Given the amount of time, effort and money involved in uprooting the workforce there must be a business case in place for this “project”.

Therefore, please could you consider releasing the business case for the move of State’s staff to the office on Broad Street?

Response

The summary business case for the acquisition, refurbishment and property occupation of 19-21 Broad Street (the Business Case) can be accessed through the following link:

Broad Street business case

The Business Case has been redacted in accordance with the following articles of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Article 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 2018.

(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 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

Personal information has been redacted in accordance with Article 25 – in this instance the details of individuals below a certain Government of Jersey grade who have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

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).

Article 33 (b) is a qualified exemption and a public interest test and prejudice test must therefore be applied. Article 33 (b) allows an authority to exempt 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 contracts between the Government of Jersey and service providers, the Scheduled Public Authority (SPA)  believes that the contract values are commercially sensitive as they are the outcome of negotiations between parties and that the release of this data could affect the negotiation of future contracts.

Article 35 Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

The SPA is withholding the release of certain parts of the information as it relates to the formulation and development of policy and procedure by the public authority.

Article 35 is a qualified exemption, which means that a public interest test is required to be undertaken by the SPA. It is therefore necessary for the scheduled public authority to examine the circumstances of the case. Following assessment the SPA has to decide whether, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Although there is a need for transparency, accountability, financial and good decision making by public authorities this information relates to the ongoing office modernisation restructuring.

The following considerations were taken into account:

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure

• Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public, providing confirmation that the necessary discussions have taken place.

• Disclosure to the public fulfils an educative role about policy development and illustrates how the department accomplishes proposed reform. 

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information

• Release of the information at this stage might generate misinformed debate. This would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately.

• Premature disclosure of this information may limit the willingness of parties to provide their honest views and feedback. This would hamper and harm the policy–making process not only in relation to this subject area but in respect of future policy development across wider Departmental business.

Taking into account the various factors, the SPA has applied redactions where necessary to maintain this exemption.

It should also be noted that once a policy is formulated and published, the public interest in withholding information relating to its formulation is diminished, however, the use of the exemption can be supported if it preserves sufficient freedom during the policy formulation phase to explore options without that process being hampered by some expectation of future publication.