Ferry contract negotiations (FOI)

​Request

Please can i be told when the new ferry contract negotiations (RFI) were started, and how the bids were weighed - ie what questions asked and what weighting to the success of the project they were given. 

Also, was condor penalised from the beginning??

Response

An Invitation to Tender (ITT) was issued on 14th May 2024 through the Government of Jersey procurement portal. The deadline for receipt of tenders was 8th July 2024. 

Proposals were then evaluated against financial, commercial, technical and legal criteria published within the ITT document. Any other information is deemed to be commercially sensitive therefore Article 33 of the Freedom of Information Jersey (Law) 2024 has been applied.

The second part of the request seeks an opinion rather than requesting any held information. This is not held by Government, therefore Article 3 of the Freedom of information Jersey (Law) 2011 has been applied.

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

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 to engage 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 providing information 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.