Severance payments for Government employees since 2018 (FOI)

Request

Please can the States Employment Board provide the following information:

A

The total number of former Government of Jersey employees given severance payments since 2018, broken down by department and year.

B

An anonymised breakdown of the amount paid out to former employees, broken down by department and year.

C

A breakdown of the reasons for the severance payments and how many instances of each reason (isuch as downsizing, restructuring department, 'golden handshakes', compensation for stress or other workplace issues), broken down by year.

Response 

A and B

The total number of agreements are provided in the Government of Jersey Annual Reports and Accounts since 2018 which can be accessed via the links below. Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

It is not possible to break the details down by department and year as to provide the requested information would likely breach the privacy of individuals and therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

Annual Report and Accounts 2018.pdf (gov.je) Page 156

Annual Report and Accounts 2019.pdf (gov.je) Page 157

Annual Report and Accounts 2020.pdf (gov.je) Page 204

Annual Report and Accounts 2021.pdf (gov.je) Page 271

Annual Report and Accounts 2022.pdf (gov.je) Page 183

C

Since 2018 exit packages for all States Employees have been disclosed in the Annual Reports and Accounts, links are provided above. 

Reasons for exit packages are detailed as:

• Compulsory or Voluntary Redundancy 
• Loss of Office 
• Outsourcing of Role 
• Other Reasons 
  
• Voluntary Early Retirement

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 the information.

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 2005.

(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 2005; 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.