Autism and attachment disorders (FOI)

Request

A

How many children in Jersey have an autism diagnosis?

B

How many children in Jersey have an attachment disorder?

Response

A

The Health and Community Services department does not hold a central register of children diagnosed with autism.

The two pathways which assess a child’s social communication needs (and therefore could result in a child receiving a diagnosis of Autism) are:

a) Early Years Pathway – Multi-agency support for children under the age of five and their parents / carers through a Team Around the Child (TAC) process; and

b) Autism and Social Communication Clinic – For children aged five to 18 but currently more diagnostic in its focus.

Some of these children may have received a diagnosis and then left the Island. Similarly, some children will have moved to Jersey with a diagnosis already in place. Finally, a minority of children may have received a diagnosis whilst residing in Jersey through a process not overseen by the Government of Jersey ie either privately or going off island to Great Ormond Street Hospital or elsewhere.

Information held on the number of children receiving a diagnosis of Autism each year via either of the two pathways outlined above is as follows:

Disclosure control has been applied to numbers fewer than ten under Article 25 (Personal information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Information held in a previous Freedom of Information response may also be of interest. This can be located at the following link:

Support for children with Autism (FOI)

B

Information is not held centrally, and it is estimated that to collate it would exceed the 12.5 hour time limit allocated under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Articles 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.

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.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.