The number and purpose of ALOs (FOI)

​​Request 682981685

At the Chamber of Commerce lunch in January 2025, the CEO (Andrew Mc Laughlin) stated that Jersey had many ALO's. He stated that there were around 140 ALO's dependent on public funding and that there had been 54 new ones since 2005 alone.

1.

Please provide a complete list of the names of the 140+ companies and a one liner on what they actually do please? 

2.

Please provide the amount of funding received by these individual companies annually.

3.

Please provide the name or position of the Government official or politician each one of these companies reports to.

Response

1.

Please see attachment 1 for the list of organisations underpinning the reference in the slide entitled: “c. 140 ALOs and organisations linked to government” as shown at the event.

Attachment 1 List of ALOs and Organisations Linked to the Government.pdf​

Information as to what these companies do is not held in recorded form. To provide an answer to this part of the request would require extraction and manipulation of data to produce new information, Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 therefore applies.

Please note that details of the organisations can be found within publicly available sources. 

2. 

Information regarding funding by the Government of Jersey is detailed in the Annual Report and Accounts for the States of Jersey which can be accessed via the link below. Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law has been applied. 

Annual Report and Accounts for the States of Jersey.gov.je

Accounts for 2024 are due to be published within the next 12 weeks. Article 36 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied. 

​Providing a listing of financial information about any organisations in the appended listing would require extraction and manipulation of data to produce new information. A Scheduled Public Authority is not required to manipulate and create new data sets. It has been estimated that the cost of extracting the data would result in a response exceeding the cost limit provisions set out in the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Therefore Articles 3 and 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey)

3.

The Annual Report and Accounts report expenditure by Department and show the responsible Minister and Accountable Officer for each Department. 

States Assembly | R.118/2024​ outlines the responsibilities of each individual Minister. 

Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to this question. 

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 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations. 

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article.

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

Article 36 - Information intended for future publication

(1) Information is qualified exempt information if, at the time when the request for the

information is made, the information is being held by a public authority with a view to its being published within 12 weeks of the date of the request.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground

must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant –

(a) of the date when the information will be published;

(b) of the manner in which it will be published; and

(c) by whom it will be published.

(3) In this Article, “published” means published –

(a) by a public authority; or

(b) by any other person.

Public Interest Test   

Article 36 is a qualified exemption, which means that a public interest test has to be undertaken to examine the circumstances of the case and decide whether, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.  

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure 

• disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public.   

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information   

• It is intended to publish the relevant documentation on www.gov.je within 12 weeks of the receipt of this request. It is reasonable for government to publish reports in an orderly manner, following completion of appropriate internal processes, and publishing in advance, and in such close proximity to the expected publication date, would potentially undermine the orderly publication and conduct of government work (when the public benefit of earlier publication under the Law would derive limited benefit). ​