Children, Young People, Education and Skills Consultants (FOI)

Request

A

How many consultants or consultancies are used, either temporarily or on contract by the Jersey Education Dept (Children, Young People, Education and Skills)?

B

How is the impact of consultants and consultancies measured?

C

What is the annual cost of using consultants and consultancies?

Response

A

Consultancy use across the Government of Jersey is reported to the States Assembly every six months in arrears. These reports are publicly available on the States Assembly website with proposition number and date (P.59/2019). As this information is accessible by other means, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Consultants use by the Government of Jersey (P.59-2019) - Report by the Chief Minister - December 2021 R.187-2021.pdf (gov.je)

Consultants: reporting on their use by the Government of Jersey (P.59/2019) – Report of the Chief Minister – June 2021 R.118-2021.pdf (gov.je)

Consultants: reporting on their use by the Government of Jersey (P.59/2019) – Report of the Chief Minister – January 2021 R.13-2021.pdf (gov.je)

Within Children, Young People, Education and Skills the number of consultants / consultancy firms were as follows:

• 2020 – 1 consultancy
• 2021 – 4 consultancies
• January to June 2022 only – 4 consultancies

B

Consultants provide advice (often strategic) outside the business-as-usual environment, with specific deliverables or outcomes defined within their engagement. They provide their skills and expertise to aid in the development, implementation, and final execution of the key projects which they support. Their impact is therefore felt in the successes found in the programmes which they are linked to.

C

Within Children, Young People, Education and Skills the cost of consultants and consultancy firms were as follows:

• 2020 – £150,000 to £174,999
• 2021 - £275,000 to £300,000
• January to June 2022 only - £125,000 to £150,000

The Department has determined that to disclose the exact figure would likely breach the privacy of individuals and therefore, Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

Articles applied

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.

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

3)      In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.