States Employment Board meetings since 1 August 2022 (FOI)States Employment Board meetings since 1 August 2022 (FOI)
Produced by the Freedom of Information officeAuthored by Government of Jersey and published on
19 December 2023.Prepared internally, no external costs.
Request
Please provide copies of the Minutes for all States Employment Board meetings since 1 August 2022.
Response
Article 8 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the “FOI Law”) makes it obligatory, when requested, to provide information held in recorded form unless the information is exempt. However, this obligation only applies to Scheduled Public Authorities. The Scheduled Public Authorities are listed in Schedule 1 of the FOI Law.
The States Employment Board (SEB), which is the employing organisation for the public service, was incorporated under Article 4 of the Employment of States of Jersey Employees (Jersey) Law 2005. It is a body corporate with perpetual succession, meaning it is a separate legal entity.
For the purposes of the FOI Law, under the interpretation of ‘public authority’ the SEB would fall within the definition of ‘(d) an Administration of the States’, which is further defined as being either:
(a) a department established on behalf of the States or;
(b) a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States (including under an enactment).
The SEB is not a government department, because it is a separate legal entity, it therefore falls into sub-paragraph (b) being a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States under an enactment.
Before the FOI Law came into force, Schedule 1 was amended so that ‘an Administration of States’ was not included on the list of Scheduled Public Authorities. It was replaced by reference to only ‘a department established on behalf of the States’. Therefore, a public authority that falls within the definition of ‘a body, office or unit of administration, established on behalf of the States (including under an enactment)’ is not a Scheduled Public Authority for the purposes of the FOI Law and the information held by the SEB does not fall under the obligations set out in the Law.
The requested information requested is therefore not held by the Government of Jersey. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.
Article 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.
Internal Review Request
I would like to request an internal review of my request.
During this review, I would like the FOI Unit to consider in particular that it has on several occasions in the past responded positively to FOI requests for SEB minutes, for example:
Internal Review Response
This review has been completed by two senior staff members of the Government of Jersey, independent of the original decision-making process.
The original response has been reviewed and assessed to identify whether the application of the exemption had been applied correctly and whether it was appropriate to withhold information.
The Panel acknowledged that minutes of the States Employment Board have been released in response to Freedom of Information requests in the past, however it is reaffirmed that that SEB is not a Scheduled Authority, and therefore not subject to Freedom of Information law as stated above.
The Panel’s decision is that the application of Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 had been correctly applied.
The reviewers, having considered the application of Article 3 in this instance, concluded that the exemption was appropriate and should be upheld.
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