Trinity Village improvement scheme documents (1) (FOI)Trinity Village improvement scheme documents (1) (FOI)
Produced by the Freedom of Information officeAuthored by Government of Jersey and published on
01 December 2023.Prepared internally, no external costs.
Request
Further to the recent Freedom of Information request below:-
Documents relating to Trinity Village improvement (FOI)
If the documents requested do not exist, please provide the project management documents that are being used to manage this project. Specifically, any documents relating to managing risks, decision making, cost control, budget, project scope, and business case justification. These documents should be considered as business as usual for any projects of this size irrespective of funding route.
Please provide a copy of the guidelines that have been used or given to project managers to enable them to pick and choose what elements of the project delivery framework they should comply with.
Response
The requested information is exempt under Article 35 (Formulation and development of policies) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as this project currently remains policy under development.
However, risk assessments detailing the identified hazards are attached.
Trinity risk register combined DR_Redacted.pdf
Trinity - Project risk and H and S Combined DR_Redacted.pdf
The release of the information at this stage would likely generate misinformed debate. This could affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately.
Article 35 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.
Article applied
Article 35 - Formulation and development of policies
Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.
Public Interest Test
The following considerations were taken into account:
Public interest considerations favouring disclosure
- Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public, providing confirmation that the necessary discussions have taken place.
- Disclosure to the public fulfils an educative role about the early stages in policy development and illustrates how the department engages with parties for this purpose.
Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information
- In order to best develop policy and provide advice to Ministers, officials need a safe space in which free and frank discussion can take place – discussion of how documentation is presented and provided is considered as integral to policy development as iterations of documents are demonstrative of the policy development process.
- The need for this safe space is considered at its greatest during the live stages of a policy.
- Release of the information at this stage might generate misinformed debate in. This would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately.
- Premature disclosure of this information may limit the willingness of parties to provide their honest views and feedback. This would hamper and harm the policy–making process not only in relation to this subject area but in respect of future policy development across wider departmental business.
Following assessment, the Government of Jersey has concluded that, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.
It should also be noted that once a policy is formulated and published, the public interest in withholding information relating to its formulation is diminished, however, the use of the exemption can be supported if it preserves sufficient freedom during the policy formulation phase to explore options without that process being hampered by some expectation of future publication.