Visite Royale costs (FOI)

Request

How much money has been spent on Visites Royales over the past five years?
A breakdown of costs for each year? And each event?
How is the money spent? Eg X on food and drink, x on transport etc.
How are the events funded?

Response

The Judicial Greffe covers the costs of transport for each Visite Royale and it has been an ancient and longstanding tradition that the Crown provides lunch for the parish representatives (the Constable, the Comité des Chemins, the Inspecteurs des Chemins, the Voyeurs and one Vingtenier from each vingtaine) and the Members of the Royal Court who participate in the Visite Royale.

Our response under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 [the FOI Law] for the transport costs, borne by the Judicial Greffe, for the last five years is as follows:

The Judicial Greffe is a Scheduled Public Authority under the FOI Law and therefore is obliged to respond to requests made under the Law. 

HM Receiver General for Jersey, who is responsible for the costs on behalf of the Crown, is not a Scheduled Public Authority and therefore is not obliged to respond to requests made under the FOI Law. 

However, in this case HM Receiver General has, in the public interest, provided a response outside of the FOI Law itemising the Crown costs back to 2010, which is included in the document below:

Download Visite Royale Costs to the Crown 2010 to 2016 (size 12.9kb)

There are two amounts with notes against them in the document above from HM Receiver General, as follows:

• 2016 Visite 2, Grouville, £2,889.50: provisional (the bills for this Visite Royale are not yet all received therefore this amount is provisional)

• 2013 Visite 1, St Ouen, £1,505.19: no bill from parish (some costs are borne directly by HM Receiver General and others are borne by the parish and then billed to HM Receiver General, but in this case no bill has been received from St Ouen)