Determining officer guidelines (FOI)

​Request

A previous applicant has been supplied with paper copies from the Social Security Determining Officer Guidelines (DOG) policies. I don’t know if this is a complete text but is substantial and unwieldy to manage.

Is it possible to obtain a complete paper copy or better still is it available online so that others can access the parts that are especially relevant to them etc? Obviously this is important information for many but is currently not generally available and I have not been able to locate it on the FOI website.

Response 

The Social Security Department provides guidance to staff in the application of some of the legislation for which it is responsible. Such guidance is written solely for the use of the department’s determining officers and Medical Board Doctors working on behalf of the department and it is updated as required. Therefore if printed, it is correct at the time of printing. 

The guidance for Long Term Incapacity Allowance (LTIA) was issued in response to a previous FOI request and can be found on this website.

Determining officer guidance for Long Term Incapacity Benefit (FOI)

A copy of the Income Support Determining Officer Guidelines as supplied to an FOI request in February 2015 can be made available from the Department on a disc as it is too large to send by email.

Personal information is exempt under Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011, as the information constitutes third party personal data. Release of personal information would breach the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

The full Income Support guidelines contain examples, many of which have been based on real cases. Even where an example is not based on a real case, some people may perceive that it has and identify themselves. Therefore, to protect the privacy of those who have claimed Income Support and any possible breach of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005 by the Social Security Department, all the examples have been redacted from the guideline extract provided in response to the FOI request.

FOI exemption(s) applied

Article 25 Personal Information
(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –
(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and
(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.