Council of Ministers concerns regarding the Tenancy Law

​​Request 733088187 

Can the correspondence between the Council of Ministers be published regarding the members who raised concerns about the Tenancy Law including rent caps, open ended tenancies and notice periods. 

Response

To capture the information requested, the email accounts of the Minister for Housing and the Chief Minister were reviewed on the basis that these Ministers hold responsibility for these matters, whether as part of their portfolio or the Chair of the Council of Ministers, and as such, would have been party to all relevant official correspondence. 

Freedom of Information response 733088187 - Attachment 1.pdf

​Freedom of Information response 733088187 - Attachment 2.pdf​

Information in scope of this request has been prepared for disclosure. Duplicate emails have been removed, and correspondence has been redacted in consideration of Freedom of Information legislation.

Redactions have been applied to remove the personal Information of individuals, including Government of Jersey employees below Tier 2, in accordance with Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Correspondence has been redacted in accordance with Article 35 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.  

Articles applied 

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 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

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 

In applying this article, 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 and testing 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 be in a position to provide advice to Ministers, Ministers and officials need a safe space in which such free and frank discussions over potential policy can take place.

• Whilst the development of policy exemption is a class-based exemption, the need for this safe space is considered at its greatest during the live stages of a policy.

• It is considered that the release of this correspondence may impact the general public and lead to misinterpretation and misinformed debate. This would affect the ability of officials to consider and develop policy away from external pressures, and to advise Ministers appropriately.

• As such a disclosure of this type of information at this stage in proceedings would be likely to hamper and harm the policy–making process, not only in relation to this subject area, but potentially in respect of future policy development across a wider departmental business.

Considering all relevant matters including but not limited to the above, while transparency is important, the public interest in disclosure of this policy development documentation must be weighed against potential harm caused by the detrimental impact on policy development processes and decision-making. These matters can be examined by established political processes, including formal Scrutiny and questioning in the States Assembly. 

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.

The SPA has concluded that, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the benefits disclosing the information.​​​​