Government of Jersey

Written submissions on the Acceptance of Cash Payments (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States Greffe and published on 12 August 2024.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

In early June 2024, the Economic and International Affairs Panel launched a review called 'Acceptance of Cash Payments' and invited submissions. To date, 29 written submissions have been published on the States Assembly website but it is known that more than 50 responses had been received by the Panel and it is anticipated that this number may have increased even further. It is also known that the submissions of some contributors who were happy to have their comments published have not been published and the Panel has given no explanation to them as to why their submissions were suppressed.

Please supply copies of the remaining written submissions on the Acceptance of Cash Payments, apart from those submissions where the contributor has not consented to publication.

Response

The requested information is exempt from disclosure in accordance with Articles 23 (Information accessible to applicant by other means) and 36 (Information intended for future publication) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (see below).

All written submissions received at the time at which the Freedom of Information request was received, and for which the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel has received consent to publish, have been published on the States Assembly website on the following page:

Scrutiny review submissions – Acceptance of Cash Payments (statesassembly.gov.je)

The evidence gathering phase of the Panel’s Scrutiny Review of the Acceptance of Cash Payments is due to close by 31 August 2024, after which it is intended for all written submissions to be published on the website (provided consent has been given by the author). This will be done before 3 October 2024, which is the date on which 12 weeks from the date of the Freedom of Information request will expire. The written submissions will be published by the States Greffe, on behalf of the Panel, on the same webpage as the submissions already published as linked above.

Notwithstanding any provision of consent by the submissions’ author, it should be noted that the decision by the Panel on whether or not to publish a written submission is covered by Assembly Privilege and the Panel has the right to choose not to publish material even where consent to publish has been provided.

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 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

(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 relevant information on www.statesassemblygov.je within 12 weeks of the receipt of this request. It is reasonable for the States Assembly (including the States Greffe) to publish information in an orderly manner, following completion of appropriate internal processes. Publishing in advance, and in such close proximity to the expected publication date, would potentially undermine the orderly publication and conduct of work (when the public benefit of earlier publication under the Law would derive limited benefit) as well the ability of Scrutiny Panels to determine their own procedures.

This response has been issued on behalf of the States Greffe. The States Greffe is responsible for the information held by (and on behalf of) both itself and the States Assembly. Neither the States Assembly nor the States Greffe form part of the Government of Jersey and the Government was not involved either in the examination and retrieval of any information required for this response, nor in the drafting of the response itself.