States Members expenses for foreign travel (FOI)

Request

A

Please advise how much money from the public purse has been used by policticans to travel to foreign regions on Government of Jersey business in 2023 to date.

B

Please proved a breakdown of costs including travel, hotels and food expenses whilst on these trips.

C

Please rpovide a breakdown of each politician's expenditure on travel expenses.

D

What amount of funds are used for visiting foreign dignitaries to Jersey?

Response 

A to C

Details of Ministerial travel costs and expenses for 2023 are due to be published on the Government of Jersey website in September 2023. Article 36 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

D

The accounting systems used by the Government of Jersey do not capture information in a way that would readily identify funds used for foreign dignitaries visiting Jersey, and not within the costs limits applied. It has been estimated that to identify these transactions would exceed the cost limit provisions set out in the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Article 16(1) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

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. 

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article.

(3) Regulations may provide that, in such circumstances as the Regulations prescribe, if two or more requests for information are made to a scheduled public authority –

(a) by one person; or

(b) by different persons who appear to the scheduled public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign, the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.

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 favouring withholding the information:

It is intended to publish the Minister’s expenses within 12 weeks of the receipt of this request on www.gov.je. In it is reasonable for government to publish reports in an orderly manner, following completion of appropriate internal processes, and publishing in advance, and in such close proximity to the expected publication date, would potentially undermine the orderly publication and conduct of government work (when the public benefit of earlier publication under the Law would derive limited benefit).