Co-Funded Payroll Scheme (FOI)

Request  

Please confirm the number of businesses that were audited as part of the Co-Funded Payroll Scheme Audit (including Self Employed) and the number of those businesses that were then required to repay any monies. No need to detail names or total amounts of repayment per business, just number of businesses in general.

Response

The Government of Jersey is currently still administering the Co-Funded Payroll Scheme (CFPS) which is not due to close for applications for January 2022 until 1 March 2022.

Therefore, at this time not all the information required to answer the request related to all applications to the CFPS that were audited is held. 

It is also intended to publish the requested data on the completed CFPS and related audit outcomes at the end of the scheme.  Article 36 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Article applied

Article 36 - Information intended for future publication

(1)     Information is qualified exempt information if, at the time when the request for the information is made, the information is being held by a public authority with a view to its being published within 12 weeks of the date of the request.

(2)     A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant –

(a)     of the date when the information will be published;

(b)     of the manner in which it will be published; and

(c)     by whom it will be published.

(3)     In this Article, “published” means published –

(a)     by a public authority; or

(b)     by any other person.

Public Interest Test

Article 36 is a qualified exemption, which means that a public interest test has to be undertaken to examine the circumstances of the case and decide whether, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure

• disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public.

Public interest considerations favoring withholding the information

• It is intended to publish all data relating to claimants and monies received under the scheme, in addition we intend to publish the information regarding those businesses that have claimed funding and have failed any of the audits
  
  
• The scheme is currently still active, so any publication of data now would not be an accurate reflection of those who have passed or failed the audit.