States Employment Board minutes (FOI)

​

Request

A

Please provide all States Employment Boards minutes from the present day to May 2019 (ie the date of the last minutes provided via Freedom of Information).

B

An explanation as to why these minutes are not already readily available on Government websites.

Response

A and B

Article 8 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the “FOI Law”) makes it obligatory, when requested, to provide information held in recorded form unless the information is exempt. However, this obligation only applies to Scheduled Public Authorities. The Scheduled Public Authorities are listed in Schedule 1 of the FOI Law.

The States Employment Board (SEB), which is the employing organisation for the public service, was incorporated under Article 4 of the Employment of States of Jersey Employees (Jersey) Law 2005. It is a body corporate with perpetual succession, meaning it is a separate legal entity.

For the purposes of the FOI Law, under the interpretation of ‘public authority’ the SEB would fall within the definition of ‘(d) an Administration of the States’, which is further defined as being either (a) a department established on behalf of the States or (b) a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States (including under an enactment). The SEB is not a government department, because it is a separate legal entity, it therefore falls into sub-paragraph (b) being a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States under an enactment. Before the FOI Law came into force, Schedule 1 was amended so that ‘an Administration of States’ was not included on the list of Scheduled Public Authorities. It was replaced by reference to only ‘a department established on behalf of the States’. Therefore, a public authority that falls within the definition of ‘a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States (including under an enactment)’ is not a Scheduled Public Authority for the purposes of the FOI Law and the information held by the SEB is not caught by the obligations set out in the FOI Law.