Sion Village Drainage Impact Assessment (FOI)

Request

Please provide the results and contents of the Drainage Impact Assessment (DIA), whether completed in full or not, that has been undertaken on the foul and surface water network in and around the Sion Village area towards town. 

Response

The Drainage Impact Assessment (DIA) is an ongoing project which has not yet been concluded.

Article 35 (Formulation and Development of Policies) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to the release of the draft DIA documents since their release at this stage will likely generate misinformed debate.

Article 35 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

It should be noted that some of the drainage information regarding the requested area is publicly available on www.gov.je in relation to the provision of affordable homes, within Policy H5 of the Bridging Island Plan. This can be accessed using the following link:  

Development briefs: affordable housing sites (gov.je)

Further information in relation to the drainage in this area is also in the Freedom of Information response linked below:

Foul drainage capacity - Sion village (FOI)

Articles applied

Article 35 - Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

Public Interest test

In applying this article, the following considerations were taken into account.

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure 

• Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public, providing confirmation that the necessary discussions have taken place.
• Disclosure to the public fulfils an educative role about the early stages in policy development and illustrates how the department engages with parties for this purpose.  

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information 

• In order to best develop policy and provide advice to Ministers, officials need a safe space in which free and frank discussion can take place – discussion of how documentation is presented and provided is considered as integral to policy development as iterations of documents are demonstrative of the policy development process. 
• The need for this safe space is considered at its greatest during the live stages of a policy. 
• Release of the information at this stage might generate misinformed debate. This would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately. 
• Premature disclosure of this information may limit the willingness of parties to provide their honest views and feedback. This would hamper and harm the policy–making process not only in relation to this subject area but in respect of future policy development across wider departmental business.