Attendance at the Conservative party annual ball (FOI)

Request

I would like to understand details of attendance to the conservative party Black and White Ball events and have the following questions:

A

Provide the names of States of Jersey members and employees of the States who have attended the conservative party Black & White Ball over the last five years.

B

If States of Jersey members and employees of the States were or have been invited to the event, then please provide the person / company name who had sent the invite.

C

Provide a breakdown of costs per person for attending the event together with details as to how this was paid. If paid by others then please detail the company / name of who paid.

D

What were the objectives for attending the event and what have been the outputs?

Response

A

Only one person has attended the Conservative party Black and White Ball in the last five years. That was Senator Philip Ozouf in February 2014.

B

The invite was from a private individual and therefore the detail is being withheld under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

C

Senator Ozouf’s attendance was paid for by a private individual - please see 'B' above. The cost of the dinner was £300 which was paid for by the individual. The detail was noted in the Gifts and Hospitality register. Only the cost of flights (£124.09) was paid by the States of Jersey and these were booked via HRG (system used for booking and recording travel). The flight was lunchtime 5 February, the following day was spent in London on business returning on the morning of 7 February.

D

The objectives of attendance were to strengthen and build on our existing positive relations with key members of the UK Government.

Exemption applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.