Breaches of Branchage Law since 2013 (FOI)

Request

A

Since 2013 to date, how many times have Government of Jersey owned properties been warned or investigated for breaches of Branchage law? 

B

Since 2013 to date, how many times did Government of Jersey owned properties receive fines for breaches of Branchage law?

For question B please give the total figure of the fine for each year and give a breakdown of numbers of fines by price bracket such as £500, £500 to £999, £1,000 to £1,500 and so forth.

Response

A and B

The information requested is partially exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011as the information is accessible for 2016 to 2018 on www.gov.je  within previous Freedom of Information responses linked below.

Branchage fines (FOI) Fines for 2016 to 2018

Branchage fines (FOI) Fines for 2012 to 17 July 2017

Jersey Property Holdings, the team responsible for the Government of Jersey estate, has received 10 warnings and 82 fines in relation to branchage breaches on Government of Jersey owned properties for the requested period.

It should be noted that the majority of the Government of Jersey’s branchage obligations are now covered by third parties under the Municipals Branchage Works Contract.

This Contract states that if the work is not carried out by the third parties or it does not meet the Parish branchage standards then the third parties will be responsible for any fines received in relation to those sites.  

There are, on occasions, anomalies where either the sites have been missed off the Contract or the site could be temporarily vacant such as the following two fines received in 2023.

£100 (June 2023)

£20 (June 2023)

These two were the result of small pieces of land that were accidentally missed off the Contract and have now been added.

The Government of Jersey does not maintain any further records regarding the branchage warnings received or fines settled by the third party contractors, therefore the information is not held and Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

The remainder of the Government of Jersey estate that does not fall within this Contract is either the responsibility of the tenant/occupier or the Government of Jersey department occupying the building for example but not limited to Health and Community Service sites, schools, countryside access paths, Sites of Special Interest (SSI), commercial and residential properties.

A central list is not maintained in relation to branchage warnings and fines received for the period requested, therefore this information is not held and Article 10 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law applies.

The Government of Jersey’s systems are not configured in a way that will allow extraction of details requested.  A manual search of records would be required in order to obtain this information. 

It has been estimated that to provide the information requested would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied and this part of the request will not be processed further.

Articles applied

Article 10 - Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding information

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if –

(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and

(b) the authority does not hold the information, it must inform the applicant accordingly.

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 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.