Complaints against Government departments (FOI)

Request

I would like the number of complaints registered against all the Government departments over the last five years. Excluding medical negligence cases.

Response

It should be noted that a new customer feedback policy is being rolled out across the Government of Jersey from October 2019. The new complaints procedure centralises complaints function and enables more effective recording of customer feedback, which can then be used to inform corporate learning and improvement. Customer and Local Services have been running the new scheme from 2017 to test its viability.

Following the re-organisation of departments within the Government of Jersey, where a blank is shown on the table, this is because it is newly formed department and any relevant data will have been included in other departments figures or will not be collatable.

Customer and Local Services (CLS)

(A) Customer and Local Services (previously Social Security) have since 2016 been operating a new policy which has a wider definition of complaints than previous years.

Children, Young People, Education and Skills (CYPES)

(B) There were 57 complaints recorded by the Department in the academic year 2018 / 2019. Prior to this period complaints were not held in a reportable format for the purposes of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Schools and colleges each have various methods of recording complaints and the majority are held within individual pupil records. It is estimated that in order to locate, retrieve, extract and quality assure this information, it would exceed the 12.5 hour permitted timeframe for answering Freedom of Information requests. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Health and Community Services (HCS)

(C) Information in relation to complaints made HCS (formerly the Health & Social Services Department) for the period 2015-2017 is considered accessible by other means, as it is readily available within a previous Freedom of Information request available at the following link:

Complaints against hospital staff (FOI)

(D) Community Services includes Mental Health, Children’s Mental Health and over community services (ie Care Homes and Community Nursing).

Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)

(E) Includes Ambulance and Jersey Fire & Rescue Services. It should be noted that the Ambulance Service previously fell under HCS, therefore there may be duplication to the figures provided within the previous HCS response linked above.

States of Jersey Police (SOJP)

(F) Information relating to 2015 and 2016 is available in response to a previous FOI response at the following link:

Complaints against the States of Jersey Police (FOI)

The figures provided in the table above include both public and organisational complaints.

Treasury and Exchequer (T&E)

(G) Complaints have been monitored since May 2018. No data prior to this is held in an accessible format for the purpose of Freedom of Information and it has been estimated that to locate and collate such information would exceed the cost limitations under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Regulations 2014.

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 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.