Policy regarding employees' responsibilites (FOI)

Request 684167045

What is in Government employee contracts to ensure Government employees are aware of their responsibilities in their public roles, and if it is in their contracts why did these individuals not adhere to this? Further I would like to know what disciplinary action has been taken against these government employees who's actions jeopardised the Ferry Tender process resulting in a public show of bias.

Response

Request Part 1

What is in Government employee contracts to ensure Government employees are aware of their responsibilities in their public roles

Response Part 1

The Civil Service Contract of Employment states:

‘In the course of your employment under this Contract of Employment you may have access to and be entrusted with confidential information relating to your role. All employees are expected to maintain strict confidentiality and privacy of business and personal information. Any breaches of confidentiality or privacy may result in disciplinary action’.  

Request Part 2

If it is in their contracts why did these individuals not adhere to this? Further I would like to know what disciplinary action has been taken against these government employees who's actions jeopardised the Ferry Tender process resulting in a public show of bias.

Response Part 2 

The Government of Jersey does not comment on individual contractual matters as this is personal information and would breach the privacy of the individuals concerned. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

Article applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(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.​

Internal Review Request

Thank you for your response, but this has not answered the question correctly. You are quoting data protection and confidentiality policy and not that of conduct. 

I will try and frame it in a more succinct manner.

• What policies do you have in place to stop employees acting in a way that would bring their roles in to disrepute
• What policies do you have in place to stop employees acting in a way that would compromise their position and that of the governments
• What policies do you have in place to ensure employees do not act in a way that would reputationally damage the government and Jersey
• What policies do you have in place to ensure employees act with integrity

Please supply the policies. 

As you are applying article 25 of the FOI Law to the second part of the question I would be grateful if you can advised what disciplinary action any individual would be subject to for non-compliance of government policies. There should be no secrecy around this. 

If the government does not have policies in place to prevent the incident in question and therefore no disciplinary action would be taken in the event of such an incident then please confirm this. 

Internal Review Response

This internal review has been conducted by an official of appropriate seniority who has not been involved in the original decision. As part of their review, they will be expected to understand the reasons behind the original response, impartially determine whether the response should be revised, and how so, considering the request and the information held, any relevant exemptions, or other relevant matters under the Law.  

The Internal Review Panel was asked to review the original response and confirm the following:  

Does the FOI request relate to a body to which the Law applies, or information held by a body covered by the Law?  Yes 

If the answer is no, all the other questions are not applicable.      

Further questions if above is a yes:   

i. Was the right information searched for and reviewed?   Yes

ii. Was the information supplied appropriately? Yes

iii. Was information appropriately withheld in accordance with the articles applied and were the public interest test/ prejudice test properly applied? Yes

Following discussion, it was agreed by the Panel that: Panel upheld the decision made by the Scheduled Public Authority.