Spending and budgeting for hand sanitiser (FOI)

Request

Please disclose the following spending and budgeting information for all public authorities that presently fall within jurisdiction of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2018:

A

The total quantity and cost of hand sanitiser purchased in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, itemised on a product by product basis.

B

The total quantity and / or budget allocated for the purchase of hand sanitiser for 2021, itemised on a product by product basis

C

The following product information for each of the products purchased and budgeted for:

• name

• certification

• British Standard number, if any

• supplier

Response

A

According to a key word search across the accounting system we have identified total costs spent on hand sanitiser of £936,417. This may not be a complete total if items did not fall under the key word search or alternative payment method such as petty cash was used.

This value represents the amount spent in 2020, not the amount consumed. There is a significant amount of hand sanitiser in stock to carry over into 2021.

The information itemised on a product-by-product basis, is not held in recorded form. To produce the information, the data would require examination and extraction from various sources and manipulated. Aside from taking more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to do that work, the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data to provide a response. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

B

No budget has been allocated specifically for hand sanitiser for 2021.

C

This information is not held in recorded form. To answer the request, the data would need to be extracted from various sources and manipulated. Aside from taking more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to do the work, the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data to provide a response. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Article 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.