Storing of money,coins and documents

​Request 759755019

How much money does the government pay to store all the money, coins and documents that were formerly store in Cyril Le Marquand House please? This is with particular reference to the basement and vaults.

Thank you.

Response

We have split the request between the three components questioned:

a) Storage of currency coins;

b) storage of currency notes, and

c) Storage of documents.

a) 

Currency coinage was moved to a pre-existing States vault at a separate undisclosed secure location; no additional charges are levied to store the coinage as demand can be met from existing capacity.

The cost of maintaining the vault includes existing security contracts, direct charges levied to the Currency Fund in 2024 equated to around £764, with a broadly equivalent expense anticipated for 2025.

b) 

Currency notes are stored at a third-party vault, details of the costs incurred are exempt from disclosure under Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

c)

The Government of Jersey does not hold information which separately identifies stored documents previously held at Cyril Le Marquand House from those originating from other locations or from historically archived records.

When documents were transferred, they were comingled with existing archived material. These archives are managed and destroyed in accordance with approved document retention policies. A record is maintained of the nature and category of documents retained but does not track where documents may have originally stored.

As a result, the Government is unable to identify what proportion of documents archived were originally transferred from Cyril Le Marquand House remain in archive, and how many of those original documents are still maintained in archive.

Accordingly, this information is not held, and Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

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 33 - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a

person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

Public Interest Test

There are a limited number of vault providers on island.

Disclosure of the commercial arrangement with current providers would prejudice the Government’s ability to secure best value in future commercial negotiations with alternative providers.

The release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of both the Government of Jersey and the third parties concerned. Disclosure could undermine the Government’s ability to secure best value in future commercial negotiations or procurements and could place suppliers or partners at a competitive disadvantage.

Having considered the public interest, the scheduled public authority has determined that while there is a general interest in transparency and accountability regarding the use of public funds, this is outweighed by the need to protect commercially sensitive information and maintain the Government’s ability to negotiate effectively on behalf of the public.

Accordingly, the requested cost information is withheld under Article 33(b) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.​​