Prison Estate

Request 769468069 

1

What is the rental costs for a prison officer/staff to live on the Prison Estate?
2

What conditions are attached to that lease?
3

Can officers sub let their property to family and friends who reside with them?
4

Is there a limit a tenant can reside on the state before it is made available to others?
5

Do you have to have dependents to live in the address or can you live alone? 

Response

1 to 5

The requested information is exempt under Article 33(b) Commercial Interests of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as details of the prison estate rent and lease are considered commercially sensitive. 

Article 33 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response. 

Article applied

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 

In applying this article, the following considerations were considered.   

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure    

• Disclosure of the information would ensure the general public to be made aware of the rental fee received by the SPA (the Government of Jersey) and the lease conditions in relation to the prison estate.
  

• Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public and would also promote trust in the Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) by showing openness. 

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information     

• The disclosure of the rental fees and lease conditions could potentially disadvantage the tenants and the SPA's ability to retain commercial advantage in any future rental notifications. 

• This could also result in the SPA's inability to secure best value for the taxpayer and this will likely prejudice the SPA as its bargaining power decreases.
  
  
• The disclosure of the rental fees and lease conditions could jeopardise the business relationship between the SPA and the tenant. 

Considering all the considerations the above, while transparency and accountability is important the public interest in disclosure must be weighed against potential harm caused by prejudice of the commercial interests. 

On balance, the SPA has concluded that the risk of causing harm by prejudice of the commercial interests the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the benefits disclosing the information.​

Internal Review Response

This internal review has been conducted by officials of appropriate seniority who have 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?

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?

ii. Was the information supplied appropriately?

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

Following discussion, it was agreed by the Panel that the original decision be overturned.

1

The requested rental costs are exempt under Article 33(b) Commercial Interests of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as details of the prison estate rent are considered commercially sensitive.

Article 33 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

2 The lease rental conditions were extracted and provided in the document attached.

3

The referenced properties cannot be sublet as referenced in clauses 3.5c and 3.7a. These clauses can be found in the attached document regarding question 2.

4 and 5

The requested information is not stipulated in the lease conditions, therefore the 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

In applying this article, the following considerations were considered.

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure

• Disclosure of the information would ensure the general public to be made aware of the rental fee received by the SPA (the Government of Jersey) in relation to the prison estate.

• Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public and would also promote trust in the Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) by showing openness.

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information

• The disclosure of the rental fees could potentially disadvantage the tenants and the SPA’s ability to retain commercial advantage in any future rental notifications.

• This could also result in the SPA’s inability to secure best value for the taxpayer and this will likely prejudice the SPA as its bargaining power decreases.

• The disclosure of the rental fees could jeopardise the business relationship between the SPA and the tenant.

Considering all the considerations the above, while transparency and accountability is important the public interest in disclosure must be weighed against potential harm caused by prejudice of the commercial interests.

On balance, the SPA has concluded that the risk of causing harm by prejudice of the commercial interests the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the benefits disclosing the information.​