Joint tender for ferry services (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey on behalf of the States Greffe and published on 04 March 2019.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

​Request

Joint tender process in 1998

In 1998 a joint tender process was undertaken by the Economic Development section or Committee of the States of Jersey with the States of Guernsey for the provision of ferry services to the Channel Islands.

The tender documentation cannot be found on the States' website, although reference to the tender process is made in other documentation.

This letter serves as a request for information and disclosure of:

A

The tender invitation to potential providers of shipping services to and from the Channel Islands.

B

The terms of reference of the tender, including all details of the services to be required from the successful tenderer

C

The responses from potential providers to the tender, even if those providers declined to tender for the contract

D

If subsequent to the joint tender process of 1998 further tenders were sought for the provision of such shipping services, the items A, B and C apply, and are also requested.

Response

A to C

We do not hold copies of the original tender invitation, terms of reference or responses from potential providers, we do however hold Committee minutes that contain information pertaining to these documents. The Committee minutes are absolutely exempt under Article 28 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

A proposition titled Car and Passenger Ferry Service between Jersey and the United Kingdom was lodged on the 16th June 1998 by the Jersey Transport Authority and adopted by the States Assembly on the 30 June 1998 which contains a summary of the tender process and is available through the following link:

Propositions

D

We do not hold any information relating to further tenders for the provision of shipping services subsequent to the joint tender process of 1998.

Exemption applied:

Article 28 States Assembly privileges

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if exemption from the obligation to disclose it under this Law is required to avoid an infringement of the privileges of the States Assembly.

(2) Except as provided by paragraph (3), a certificate signed by the Greffier of the States certifying that exemption is required to avoid an infringement of the privileges of the States Assembly is conclusive evidence of that fact.

(3) A person aggrieved by the decision of the Greffier of the States to issue a certificate under paragraph (2) may appeal to the Royal Court on the grounds that the Greffier did not have reasonable grounds for issuing the certificate.

(4) The decision of the Royal Court on the appeal shall be final.

Justification for Exemption

Parliamentary Privilege is a form of immunity which is necessary for a parliament to function independently, without external interference.

In 2017 the Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC) decided that while all minutes of Committees that were appointed under Standing Order 39 of the Standing Orders of the States of Jersey 1966 are subject to parliamentary privilege, those minutes that are older than 25 years will be considered on a case-by-case basis and may be released upon request due to the elapsed time period: the presumption is that such minutes will normally be released.

Committee minutes that are less than 25 years old will not be released as this would be considered an infringement of the privileges of the States Assembly, particularly the Assembly’s right to decide its own internal procedures, including deciding on what information to put in the public domain and the timing and manner of such publication, without interference from any outside authority. This is a fundamental protection for a democratically-elected legislature and the existence of this privilege in Jersey was confirmed by the Royal Court in the case of Syvret v. Bailhache & Hamon (1998 JLR 128).

Please note:

This response has been issued on behalf of the States Greffe, which is responsible for the information held by (and on behalf of) both itself and the States Assembly. Neither the States Assembly nor the States Greffe form part of the Government of Jersey and the Government was not involved either in the examination and retrieval of any information required for this response, nor in the drafting of the response itself