Minutes of the Women's Health Political Advisory Group (FOI)

​​Request

Please provide copies of the Minutes of the Women’s Health Political Advisory Group ​for the past year.

Response

The Women’s Health Political Advisory Group is not a formally constituted Ministerial Group. For further information in this regard, please see the link below. 

How the Council of Ministers works (gov.je)​

As the group supports policy formulation and development in relation to women’s health and wellbeing, the Minutes are not published and are exempt under Article 35 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Article applied 

Article 35 - Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

Public Interest Test 

Article 35 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.  

Although there is a need for transparency, accountability, financial and good decision making by public authorities this information relates to an ongoing situation. The Scheduled Public Authority, and indeed good government, requires Ministers to be provided with full, frank advice from officials about the possible impact of proposed policy, and for Ministers and officials to be able to discuss and test those proposed policies in a comprehensive way.

The following considerations were taken into account:

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure:

• disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public.
• disclosure to the public fulfils an educative role about the early stages in policy development and illustrates how the department engages with parties for this purpose.

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information:

• in order to best develop policy, Officers and Ministers need a safe space in which free and frank discussion can take place. Sharing views is important to ensure that all relevant considerations are taken into account in developing and implementing policy. Disclosure when these views are still being considered would negatively impact the Department's ability to fully consider the information
• the need for this safe space is considered at its greatest during the live stages of a policy
• release of the information at this stage might generate misinformed debate in areas where future options have yet to be finalised. This would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately
• disclosure of this information may limit the willingness of parties to provide their honest views and feedback in future. This would hamper and harm the policy–making process not only in relation to this subject area but in respect of future policy development across wider Departmental business.

​Taking into account the various factors, the Scheduled Public Authority decided in favour of withholding the information.​