Emergency housing licenses (FOI)

​Request

Please can you inform me:

A
How many emergency housing licenses were issued in 2019?

B
What was the turnaround time for granting these licenses?

C
Which Minister supported and approved the applications?

D
On what grounds were they granted? 

Response 

Information is already accessible on www.gov.je via a previous Freedom of Information response linked below:

Entitled status approvals (FOI)

Applications are considered on a case-by-case basis and the turnaround time will depend on a number of factors, including the complexity of the application, the timeliness of supporting submissions being received, and whether it can be considered by officers under delegated powers, or whether it needs to be referred to the Assistant Chief Minister (currently Deputy Chief Minister), with advice taken from his political colleagues on the Housing and Work Advisory Group.

The grounds for granting “Entitled” status on the grounds of hardship fall under the following headings, in line with published policy guidance. It is often the case that the grounds for granting may overlap more than one of the headings:

• Relationship breakdown
• Death of a spouse
• Medical reasons
• Accommodation related
• Extended absences/Broken residence

Due to the small numbers involved it is not possible to further break down numbers as this could potentially lead to identification of individuals. Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Articles applied

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

Article 25      Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(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.

(3)     In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.