Environmental crimes and offences

​​​Request 758517714 

1. The total number of environmental crimes or offences recorded each year from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2024, broken down by category (e.g., pollution offences, waste disposal offences, wildlife crimes, illegal dumping, unauthorised development, etc.). 

2. The number of prosecutions, cautions, or other enforcement actions taken in relation to these offences each year. 

3. The number of cases where proceeds of environmental crime were identified, seized, or subject to confiscation or forfeiture orders. 

4. Copies or extracts of any internal definitions, classifications, or policies used 

Response 

1 & 2 

The information requested is partially exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the information is accessible on Government of Jersey within the links below:  ​

gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Government and administration/R States of Jersey 2021 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf

gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Government and administration/States of Jersey Group 2024 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf

Further annual reports can be found within the link below:  

Fisheries and Marine Resources Panel

Currently, our systems are not configured in a way that will allow us to extract the details you have requested, and to fully respond to this request would require extraction and manipulation of data to produce new information. A Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) is not required to manipulate and create new data sets, and Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.  

A manual search of our records would be required to obtain the remaining information. It has been estimated that to provide the information requested would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014, therefore, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies. 

3 

The SPA does not hold information relating to the number of cases where proceeds of environmental crime were identified, seized, or subject to confiscation or forfeiture orders, therefore, Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies 

4 

The information requested is exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the information is accessible on Government of Jersey  within the links below:  

• Infrastructure and Environment Regulators Code, Infrastructure and Environment Decision Making Protocol and Enforcement Policy for the Regulation Directorate can be found within the below link, under the Regulation heading. 

Infrastructure and Environment

• Links for AG guidance: 

Code on the decision to prosecute - Law Officers' Department

• Second link for AG guidance: 

Supplementary guidance on decision to prosecute: environmental protection - Law Officers' Department​

Articles applied  

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority” 

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if – 

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or 

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority. 

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.  

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article. 

(3) Regulations may provide that, in such circumstances as the Regulations prescribe, if two or more requests for information are made to a scheduled public authority – 

(a) by one person; or 

(b) by different persons who appear to the scheduled public authority to be acting in 

concert or in pursuance of a campaign, the estimated cost of complying with any of the 

requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them. 

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.