Our Hospital contract tenders (FOI)

Request

With reference to the Jersey Evening Post article on Wednesday 18 December, page 5, "New hospital contract put out to tender", please confirm the following. The sites on which the ‘Our Hospital’ construction project was advertised, in the UK and on the Continent.

The opening and closing dates of the advertisements.

Once past the closing date, the number of applicants and names from each site.

Response

The Jersey Evening Post article of Wednesday 18 December refers to a procurement process to secure a design and delivery partner to support the Our Hospital Project.

The opportunity was communicated on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), which is the publication in which all tenders, valued above a certain financial threshold, must be published from the public sector across Europe. Organisations register to be notified of new business opportunities in specific industry areas by the OJEU. The opportunity was also communicated through Tenders Electronic Daily, which is the supplement to the OJEU. Although Jersey is not bound by the relevant EU legislation, the OJEU presents an important communications route for Government of Jersey tenders.

The opportunity was also communicated on the Channel Islands Tender Portal, which also sends automatic notifications to organisations that have registered interest in specific industry areas.

A Prior Information Notice, which is the first formal notice of an intention to enter into a tender process, was communicated on 28 November 2019.

The window for Expressions of Interest was from 28 November to 23 December.

The Selection Questionnaire, which is used to collect information to help decide which suppliers could be appropriate to participate in a tender exercise, was uploaded on the Channel Islands Tender Portal on 06 December 2019. The deadline for submissions closed on 23 December.

The closing date for the Selection Questionnaire has passed. However, as the process to procure a Delivery Partner is ongoing, the number of applicants and names of potential suppliers is exempt under Article 33(b) (Commercial Interests) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 and will not be released at this time.

Article applied

Article 33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public Interest Test

Since the exemption engaged is qualified, not absolute, a public interest test has been conducted to assess whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in supplying the information is outweighed by the public interest in not doing so.

As the tender process is currently ongoing, it is considered the request for details of the number of applicants and names of suppliers is not appropriate at this time when the Government of Jersey is about to procure for the project and therefore the public interest in raising awareness of specific applicants is outweighed by the potential prejudice to the commercial interests of both the Government of Jersey and to third parties.