Review of the Food Security Strategy (FOI)

Request

The last Freedom of Information request for progress on the Food Security Strategy only came up with the old 2012 Food Security Strategy.

A revision was supposed to be part of the new Rural Economy Strategy, but was not.

As recent severe weather shows, it does not take long for shelves to empty in Supermarkets.

Delta Innovation were also working on a Draft Food Security strategy for the States of Jersey, as was shown on their website.

Please can I have:

A

Details of any progress towards a newer Food Security Strategy by the States than that 6 years ago (when the Co-Op had local warehousing to deal with freight shortages, now closed).

B

Details, redacted if need be, of correspondence by email with Delta Innovation on their project.

C

Information as to whether the Delta Project proceeded to fruition or is still in progress.

D

Details of who the Minister (or Ministers) whose remit is Food Security

Response

A

The original 2012 Draft Food Security Strategy (DFSS 2012) was produced as part of the 2011 to 2015 Rural Economy Strategy (RES). Elements of the draft strategy were implemented during this period as business as usual.

It was anticipated that residual elements of the draft strategy would be picked up and embedded in the following RES which was due to run concurrently from 2016 to 2020.

The publication of the new 2016 RES was delayed by one year, whilst the Medium Term Financial Plan was finalised by the States of Jersey and due to initial caution around the impact of Brexit.

As part of the RES review an updating of the DFSS was commissioned and a first draft was received in May 2017. Revisions are being considered with a view to publishing the report on the States of Jersey website in February 2018.

It should be noted that this is a ‘Review of Jersey’s Food Security’ rather than a strategy. As such, there are no recommendations but a series of options to consider in advance of the mid-term review of the current RES in 2018/19.

It includes reference to the 2017 RES in particular as this relates to the ability to produce food. There is some mention in the main text, but more importantly the options sections highlights where the RES has already covered these off.

B

The parameters of your request are too wide. Searching all correspondence from the relevant Department with Delta Innovation would not be possible within 12.5 working hours. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

C

Please see response to part 'A'

D

The Minister for Economic Development, Tourism, Sports & Culture holds ministerial responsibility for food security.

Article and regulation 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 any fee of 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.