Complaints about Organic Kids Nursery (FOI)

Request

A

I would like to know how many complaints and what complaints Organic Kids Nursery has had against them and what incidents they have had where children have been hurt or put at risk please.

B

Also, how many times Organic Kids have taken parents or guardians to court for non-payment of fees.

C

How many complaints the States of Jersey have had regarding the unreasonable terms and conditions of Organic Kids contract.

Response

A

The Education Department can neither confirm nor deny whether they hold the information requested.

B

There were 10 cases that were contested in the Petty Debts Courts in the last five years. The Judicial Greffe is unable to provide the number of uncontested cases as they only maintain complete indexes of records where a claim is contested. To search for claims which are uncontested would require extracting and reading every case record, which would be beyond the 12.5 hours of work laid down by the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

C

The Education Department can neither confirm nor deny whether they hold the information requested.

A previous Freedom of Information response on this subject can be viewed at the following link:

Complaints received and staff turnover at OK Nursery (FOI)

Articles applied

Article 10 Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding information

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if –

(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and

(b) the authority does not hold the information,

it must inform the applicant accordingly.

(2) If a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority and –

(a) the information is absolutely exempt information or qualified exempt information; or

(b) if the authority does not hold the information, the information would be absolutely exempt information or qualified exempt information if it had held it,

the authority may refuse to inform the applicant whether or not it holds the information if it is satisfied that, in all the circumstances of the case, it is in the public interest to do so.

(3) If a scheduled public authority so refuses –

(a) it shall be taken for the purpose of this Law to have refused to supply the information requested on the ground that it is absolutely exempt information; and

(b) it need not inform the applicant of the specific ground upon which it is refusing the request or, if the authority does not hold the information, the specific ground upon which it would have refused the request had it held the information.

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.

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.