Government of Jersey

Modifications to Ministerial offices (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by States of Jersey and published on 11 September 2017.

Request

For each Ministerial department, please kindly provide a list of all modifications made to Ministerial offices and those of senior civil servants / advisors and the cost of each since the most recent cohort of elected representatives took office in 2014.

‘Modifications’ pertain to everything purchased using States money from décor arrangements such as tables, desks, picture frames, chairs, coffee machines, TVs, new computers, etc. to larger scale adjustments such as repainting, new bathrooms, and so on.

For each, please provide a description of the item / modification in question (please provide the make and model where possible / details like ‘leather office chair’ rather than just ‘chair’), who it was for (if there is a personal information exemption for civil servants, please just provide this for the ministers), the date, and the cost.

Response

Where readily available the information requested is provided in the table below.

For Jersey Property Holdings (JPH) (the section which carries out building maintenance for States departments) the information could not be provided within the time permitted under the Regulations of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

“Senior civil servants” has been interpreted to mean Chief Officers for the purpose of this answer.

The cost of replacement PCs has been excluded. There is a rolling replacement programme of technology refresh across the States.

Department	Date	Value	Minister/officer name	Details
Chief Minister's Department	1 December 2014	£7,977	Chief Ministers Office (mobile unit so can be used Corporately)	HD LED TV, trolley and mobile video conferencing unit with licences
Chief Minister's Department	1 February 2017	£13,282	Council of Ministers Meeting Room (Ministerial team and Corporate meetings)	Swapped aging projectors for flat panel touch sensitive TVs and speakers and installed updated dedicated video conferencing facilities with licences
Community and Constitutional Affairs	No direct costs but work may have been carried out by JPH
Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture	No direct costs but work may have been carried out by JPH
Education	27 August 2014	£596	Minister	Painting of Room
	7 January 2015	£676	Minister	Decoration of Ministers Office
	5 May 2017	£2,104	Minister	Table, 6 chairs and storage
	15 January 2015	£100	Minister	Network cabling in room to move socket
Environment	No direct costs but work may have been carried out by JPH
External Relations	1 December 2016	£457	Minister	Ceremonial flag, flag pole and stand (transportable and can be used for inbound official events)
External Relations	December 2016 / January 2017	£159	Minister	Hanging pictures and making good walls
Health and Social Services	21 January 2015	£17	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Equipment for Corporate Meeting Room - MS Mobile Mouse 3500
	6 March 2015	£3,099	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	SmartBoard Touch Screen - Corporate Meeting Room - E70 (70") LCD
	6 March 2015	£390	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Wi-fi for Smart Board - Corporate Meeting Room - Awind WiPG 1000 WePresent
	13 July 2015	£69	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	AppleTV - Corporate Meeting Room
	3 March 2015	£390	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Wireless presentation gateway - Corporate Meeting Room
	15 December 2016	£617	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Purchase of Mitel Conference Telephone - Corporate Meeting Room
	6 March 2015	£799	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Motorised Stand - part of Smart Board Equipment - Corporate Meeting Room
	6 March 2015	£125	Ministerial Team, Chief Officer and corporate meetings	Sound bar for Smart Board Equipment package - Corporate Meeting Room
Infrastructure	No direct costs but work may have been carried out by JPH
Social Security	23 November 2014	£1,440	Chief Officer	Move doors and stud-work to reduce size of Chief Officer office and create meeting room for use by whole department
Social Security	18 December 2014	£350	Minister	(Estimated cost) As part of wider changes to the department's offices the Minister's office was moved, and the new office was repainted. The amount included is an estimate of the costs attributable specifically to this work
Treasury and Resources	1 December 2014	£310	Minister	Decoration to walls and woodwork

For some departments the work to obtain the detailed breakdown requested of information could only be achieved by examining individual invoices and would require more than the 12.5 hours of work laid down by the legislation.

Article applied

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.

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article.

(3) Regulations may provide that, in such circumstances as the Regulations prescribe, if two or more requests for information are made to a scheduled public authority –

(a) by one person; or

(b) by different persons who appear to the scheduled public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,

the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.