Government of Jersey contracts (FOI)

Request

I would be most grateful if you would provide me, under the Freedom of Information Act, details in respect to the below.

Freedom of Information Request: Catering Services, Security Services, Cleaning Services, Hard and Soft Maintenance Services (Mechanical, Building Maintenance and Electrical Services) from the past two years.

The details we require are:

• suppliers who applied for inclusion and were successful and not successful at the PQQ (Pre-Qualification Questionnaire) & ITT (Invite To Tender) stages*

• copy of the successful suppliers ITT submission

• contract values of each contract year to date

• start date & duration of contract

• scope of services provided under current contract

• is there an extension clause in the contract(s) and, if so, the duration of the extension?

• has a decision been made yet on whether the contract(s) are being either extended or renewed?

• who is the senior officer (outside of procurement) responsible for this contract?

*For clarity, the details of the successful and unsuccessful suppliers are kept in the strictest confidence. These details are used only to contact and support suppliers regarding their bidding activity for the relevant contracts. We have attached a Reply Form below, which may assist you in providing this data.

Response

The Scheduled Public Authority has estimated that to provide the information requested would far exceed the time limit under the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Information is held in a variety of systems across all Government departments and in separate locations across the island.

It was also felt that, should such information be retrievable within the time limit, it would be likely exempt under Articles 33 (Commercial interests) and Article 34 (The economy) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. Information contained within contracts and logged by the Government of Jersey as the result of tender applications would need to be analysed on a case by case basis, however such information would likely be considered commercially sensitive and in opposition to the economic interests of Jersey.

It should be noted that tenders are made on a confidential basis.

For clarity please note that responses to Freedom of Information requests are published on a log of responses on the Gov.je website – as such, any information provided in response to a Freedom of Information response is considered to be released to the public.

Articles applied / referenced

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 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 39 Employment

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice pay or conditions negotiations that are being held between a public authority and –

(a) an employee or prospective employee of the authority; or

(b) representatives of the employees of the authority.