School staff Non-Disclosure Agreements (FOI)

Request

How many Non-Disclosure Agreements (or similar confidentiality agreements) have been signed by staff or departing staff members in all Jersey schools (which the Government of Jersey holds data for) in the past 10 years? 

Can this information be provided in a table format or similar, breaking down the information by school, year of NDA and role and title of staff member?

Response

Confidentiality agreements or non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) may be signed for several different reasons, including: 

• prior to or as part of a commercial arrangement at or for the benefit of a school; 
• arrangements with external investigators;  
• because of certain school staff members undertaking certain sensitive work; and  
• in settlement arrangements.  

The Government of Jersey does not hold a central record of all signed Non-Disclosure Agreements, signed by current staff or departing staff members from Jersey Schools. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.    

The reference to “similar confidentiality agreements” and “departing staff” has been interpreted to mean information is also requested for similar agreements to NDAs which include a confidentiality and non-disclosure aspect, including any agreements with departing staff in cases of redundancy/severance.  

The Government of Jersey does not hold a central record of compromise or severance agreements prior to 2017, the year in which the Case Management Team was established. Conducting a search through various legacy record management systems for applicable data from the years preceding this date would be a substantial and time sensitive exercise and therefore Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.  

All data provided on compromise and severance agreements is related to members of staff departing Government of Jersey “provided” schools only, which includes the primary and secondary provisions of Jersey College for Girls and Victoria College. The Government of Jersey does not hold data related to NDAs or confidentiality agreements in relation to the island's private schools. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.   

The table below shows the number of compromise or severance agreements the Government of Jersey has signed with departing members of staff from Jersey schools from 2017 to-date.   

It is not possible to provide the breakdown in the format requested as this could lead to the identification of individuals. Where numbers are small, disclosure control has also been applied to protect the privacy of individuals. Numbers fewer than five are represented as ‘<5’. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”  

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if – 

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or 

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority. 

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. 

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.