Hospital project spend (FOI)

Request

Please detail the spend to-date on the hospital project detailing what companies received what quantities. Can be as a percentage of total?

Response 

Our Hospital Project (2019 – 2022):

As of 31 December 2022, £83.8m has been spent on the Our Hospital (O.H.) Project. £9.8m related to direct design and professional fees.

For the OH project direct design and professional fees, the following was paid from inception (2019) to 31 December 2022:

The Head of Expenditure for the Our Hospital Project was closed on 31 December 2022, in line with the amendment to the Government Plan and approval by States Assembly of Amendment 20 to the approved Government Plan: Hospital Funding, which can be accessed via the link below:

Proposed Government Plan 2023-2026 – Hospital Funding.pdf (gov.je)

The names of companies who provided services for the OH project can be found in various articles online in Government of Jersey news, plus other national and local Jersey news articles, therefore Article 23 (information accessible to applicant by other means) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

New Healthcare Facilities (NHF) Programme (2023):

The Head of Expenditure for NHF commenced from 01 January 2023. As of 28 February 2023, £3.2m has been spent on the NHF programme, which includes the redevelopment of the former Les Quennevais School.  £299k of this is related to design and professional fees. 

For the direct design and professional fees, this includes the following services: 

• Health Planner and Clinical Design Team
• Programme Management Office
• Design Quality Assurance and NEC Supervisor
• Cost Management Consultants

The NHF programme will coordinate a number of subordinate projects, which will be delivered in phases as described in States Report R.32/2023: Approach to Delivering New Healthcare Facilities – which can be accessed via the link below. NHF will seek to procure other design and delivery partners or professional services to support the construction of different phases of the programme, however, to release information in this regard may prejudice the future commercial interests of the Government of Jersey, therefore Article 33 (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.   

Approach to Delivering New Health Care Facilities.pdf (gov.je)

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 33 - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public interest test

Article 33 (b) is a prejudice-based exemption. That means that in order to apply this exemption there must be a likelihood that disclosure would cause prejudice to the interest that the exemption protects. In addition, this is a qualified exemption and consideration must be given to the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

The Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) considers that to release information relating to design and delivery partners or professional services engaged to support the NHF project could prejudice the commercial interests of the Government of Jersey and/or third parties. 

There may be public interest in the commercial information however it was considered that this is outweighed by the potential for commercial and or financial damage.