Government of Jersey funding for Butterfly Effect Cafe (FOI)

Request

A

Please advise how much in government funding has the Butterfly Effect Cafe received in 2023? 

B

Where has this money come from? 

C

What information is held relating to the proposed expenditure of these funds, for example rent, staff salaries. Please provide a breakdown or budget documents relating to same. 

D

What information is held in relation to future funding of the Butterfly Effect Cafe?

Response 

A

A grant of £155,000 was made to the Butterfly Effect Café Limited. 

B

This funding sits under the Cabinet Office Head of Expenditure.

C

This Government expenditure was a one-off grant to a third party for set up costs.  How the third party uses the grant is commercial information and is considered exempt under Article 33(b) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. 

D

As highlighted in the response above, as this is a one-off grant, future funding is not planned. Therefore there is no information held in relation to future funding. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies. 

Articles applied 

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

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 

Article 33(b) is a prejudice-based exemption. That means that in order to engage this exemption there must be a likelihood that disclosure would cause prejudice to the interest that the exemption protects. In addition, this is a qualified exemption and consideration must be given to the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

It is considered that providing information could prejudice the commercial interests of the Government of Jersey and/or third parties. There may be public interest in the commercial information however it was considered that this is outweighed by the potential for commercial and/or financial damage.