Communications Employee Policy (FOI)

​​Original ​​​Request 680609063

​Dear FOI team,

I would like to request, for all government departments except communications professionals and press officers:

- the text of any policy or guidance to civil servants that relates to engaging with members of the media.

- any emails that were sent to civil servants during the past year about guidance or policies when it comes to engaging with members of the media.

- any manuals, guidebooks or similar distributed by the Government to their employees, relating to responding to media requests. 

- the number of government employees who were disciplined for their media engagement during each of the past 5 years.

- the annual spend on media training for each of the past five years, split by provider, with details of purpose and who received the training.

I would be happy to provide any clarification if needed.

Many thanks.

Original Response

1. 

The official secrets document, which all civil servants are required to sign, confirms the following: 

3.2 Official Communication

No officer shall, without the delegated authority from the Employer or Administering Authority, make public in any newspaper or periodical or otherwise any official communication or information which may have come to his knowledge in his official capacity. Any officer infringing 3.2 above shall be liable to dismissal.

3.8            Private Conduct

An officer shall avoid, in relation to his private affairs, conduct which might give ground for suspicion of abuse of trust or of wrongful disclosure of official information.

Reference is also made within our Disciplinary rules, applicable to all Public Servants: 

Disciplinary toolkits

Gross Misconduct: Misuse and inappropriate use of applications, email, internet, or social media

Any inappropriate use of Social Media networks, the internet, or email system for purposes unrelated to the work of the post holder. This includes posting of any inappropriate pictures or comments on any publicly accessible website both during and outside of working hours.

Social Media policy – applicable to all GoJ employees:

The Government of Jersey values the use of social media to inform the public, raise awareness of services and changes, encourage people to take specific actions, to access services and to receive and respond to feedback. The Government recognises that employees communicate online in many ways, such as through social media, professional networking sites, blogs, online news sites and personal websites, both at home and at work. However, all employees need to use good judgement about what material appears online and in what context.

MyWelcome (corporate induction for new starters):

This will be undergoing a review in 2025. This explains to colleagues that whether they are using chat, social media, email or more formal communication, they are still representing their team, area, department, or, in the case of external emails, the Government of Jersey. Colleagues are expected to use these kinds of platforms responsibly and with good judgement. They should always pay attention to the tone and appropriateness of any post or email they send, and how it reflects on them and our organisation. Colleagues are advised that anything written could be discoverable by others and can be difficult to delete. 

2.  

No emails have been sent. 

3. 

The official secrets declaration (extract above) is issued to all employees on appointment. Employees are made aware of the location of people policies, which are accessible on MyStates and via gov.je. The disciplinary rules (referenced above) outline the rules for all employees. 

4. 

There has been <5 government employees disciplined for media engagement in the past 5 years. 

It is not possible to provide further breakdown as this could lead to the identification of individuals. Where numbers are small, disclosure control has been applied to protect the privacy of individuals. Numbers fewer than five are represented as ‘<5’. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

5. 

According to our records, there has been no spend allocated to any media training over the past five years. 

Article 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 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.​

Internal Review Request

I am writing to request an internal review for FOI request 680609063.

In this I requested the following: 

I would like to request, for all government departments except communications professionals and press officers:

(...)

- any emails that were sent to civil servants during the past year about guidance or policies when it comes to engaging with members of the media.

And the answer read as follows:

2.

No emails have been sent. 

However, this answer is clearly and demonstrably false, as there is evidence of at least one relevant email. This was sent to ambulance staff in November and can be read here: 

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/paramedics-gagged-amid-claims-declining-service/. ​

It directly quotes the Government of Jersey Code of Practice. This news piece would have been available to officers from the FOI team with just a Google search.

The email is quoted as saying: 

Noting that engaging with the media is “inappropriate and contrary to the Codes of Practice employees agree to while working in the public service”, she went on to say that doing so could harm the service’s reputation and would not be tolerated, as such actions could erode public trust and potentially result in loss of life.

The email in full included the following passage:

If you are minded to share your story with Islanders, I would urge you to participate in this campaign to add weight to the Service's messaging, rather than speaking with journalists. As per your contractual obligations, if members of the service wish to speak with media, they are required to have permission from me, as the Chief Officer. These are the same terms that apply to every member of the public service.

If you have contacted the media and wish to recant any testimony following this reminder, please be aware you can contact the journalist and ask for your testimony to be struck from the record. I consider this to be an offer of amnesty regarding any potential disciplinary proceedings related to this, which, given the provisions above, may follow from such engagement since Monday's publication until the receipt of this email.

This email should have been included in the response to my request.

It very clearly contains multiple references to speaking to media as well as references to guidance and policy in the form of the Codes of Practice. As you can see from the news piece linked above, there was no room for ambiguity at all about the subject of the email: staff knew that this was a reference to media engagement, because of the clear references to "speaking with journalists", "speak to media" and "if you have contacted the media". It follows that the references to the Code of Practice cannot be interpreted as being about anything other than media engagement.

There is also no ambiguity as to whether this email was sent to civil servants (as per my request), as even within the email, its recipients are referred to as "public servants". It references the Court of Appeal case Sunderland & Le Sauteur v AG, which places it within the timeframe of my request ('the past year' on 18 January).

There is also no argument that this email would have been difficult or time-consuming to find: not only was the news coverage easily available online, but an inbox search for the words "journalist" or "media" would also have revealed it. This is a quick task.

Given this oversight, it is clear that there was not a full review of email correspondence. I would like to request a full review of the responses given to this FOI request. As the different parts of my request are related, I would like your team to review whether the answers I was provided are complete and whether my questions were treated with the attention I am entitled to receive under the FOI law.

Internal Review Response

This internal review has been conducted by an official of appropriate seniority who has not been involved in the original decision. As part of their review, they will be expected to understand the reasons behind the original response, impartially determine whether the response should be revised, and how so, considering the request and the information held, any relevant exemptions, or other relevant matters under the Law.  

The Internal Review Panel was asked to review the original response and confirm the following:  

Does the FOI request relate to a body to which the Law applies, or information held by a body covered by the Law? 

Yes 

If the answer is no, all the other questions are not applicable.      

Further questions if above is a yes:   

i. Was the right information searched for and reviewed? (supply audit if possible) - Yes

ii. Was the information supplied appropriately (supply evidence if possible) - Yes

iii. Was information appropriately withheld in accordance with the articles applied and were the public interest test/ prejudice test properly applied? (supply supporting documents re the test if possible) – Yes, Article 25 was correctly applied

Following discussion, it was agreed by the Panel to uphold the decision.  The Panel asked the Scheduled Public Authority to share some further wording on the process undertaken to search.  

Further Information

We do not use the GOJ email system to send out corporate communications.  For any communications to employees within the Government of Jersey, we use the corporate communications tool Populo – this is managed by the central communication team.  This is the system used for any corporate messages needing to go out to the organisation and therefore was the focus for our search.