Exemptions from the isolation programme (FOI)

Request

A

How many people arriving at Jersey’s port and airport have been exempt from the island’s isolation programme? Please provide a breakdown for the number of people from each.

B

What is the gender and age breakdown of people who have been exempted from the screening programme?

C

Without identifying individuals, why were exemptions granted? For example, medical reasons, mental health conditions and so on.

Response

A

257 work exemptions have been processed between 26 October and 15 November 2020.

Of these, 163 were approved, 94 were rejected.

We do not hold details of whether the individual is arriving through the airport / harbour in an easily accessible format. To produce this information would require significant analysis, on an individual-by-individual basis, after interrogating a database which is held by another Department. It has been estimated this would take in excess of the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses under the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014.

B

We do not request this information for the exemptions application process. To produce this information would require significant analysis, on an individual-by-individual basis, to identify

individuals’ dates of birth, after interrogating a database which is held by another Department. It has been estimated this would take in excess of the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses under the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014.

C

The significant majority of requests are for ‘critical worker’ exemptions - hundreds of requests have been received from various roles and multiple industries. The vast majority from the Construction sector, with other requests from:

• healthcare

• agriculture

• animal Welfare

• finance

• mechanic

Three other arriving passengers have been provided with special exemptions relating to specific health issues. In all these instances medical advice was sought prior to exemption being provided.

Article applied

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.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.