GoJ expenditure on off-island residential care for children

​​Request ​802184620

I request the following information for each of the financial years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (to date): 

1.  The total annual expenditure by the Government of Jersey on off-island residential care placements for children and young people, including therapeutic residential placements, specialist residential school placements, secure placements, and parent-and-child assessment placements. 

2.  The number of children and young people placed in off-island residential care during each of those years. 

3.  The total annual expenditure on on-island residential care for children and young people, including placements at Greenfields, Oakside, and any other Government-operated or commissioned residential children's home or unit. 

4.  The total annual expenditure on foster care for children and young people, distinguishing between on-island and off-island foster placements where possible. 

5.  The total number of children in the care of the Minister at year end for each of those years. 

6.  The total annual budget allocated to Children's Services and the actual outturn expenditure against that budget for each of those years

Clarification requested 

The total annual expenditure by the Government of Jersey on/off-island residential care placements for children and young people, including therapeutic residential placements, specialist residential school placements, secure placements, and parent-and-child assessment placements. 

The number of children and young people placed in off-island residential care during each of those years. Could you clarify if you require the totals to include the categories as listed in the above sentence i.e. including therapeutic residential placements, specialist residential school placements, secure placements, and parent-and-child assessment placements?

Clarification response 

Thank you for your email seeking clarification. I would like the number of children and young people placed in off island residential care to include all of the following categories:

• ​Therapeutic residential placements
• Specialist residential school placements
• Secure placements
• Parent and child assessment placements 

I would be grateful if the figures could be broken down by each placement type individually, rather than provided as a single combined total, to allow for a more meaningful analysis of expenditure across the different categories. 

I hope this provides the clarification required and I look forward to receiving a response in due course. 

Response

1. We are unable to provide the annual expenditure by the Government of Jersey on off-island residential care placements for children and young people as a total or broken down into the categories as requested as we do not hold the data in an extractable format. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied. 

2. The number of children and young people placed in off-island residential care during the requested years is provided in the table below: 

The data above includes all the classifications of placement requested on clarification, but we cannot report each classification separately due to low numbers.

Where numbers are fewer than five, disclosure control is applied to avoid identification of individuals. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

3. The total annual expenditure on on-island residential care for children and young people and any other Government-operated or commissioned residential children's home or unit is provided in the attachment. 

Freedom of Information response 802184620 - Attachment.pdf​

4. The total annual expenditure for on-island foster care for children and young people across the years requested is provided in the attachment. 

We are unable to provide total expenditure for off-island foster placements as we do not hold the data in a recordable format and this is not extractable from client files in these categories. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied. 

5. The total number of children in the care of the Minister at year end for each of the years requested is provided in the table below: 

​6. The total annual budget allocated to Children's Services and the actual outturn expenditure against that budget for each of the years requested is provided in the table below: 

​Please note: Over the course of this period, there were additional special allocations for COVID and fiscal stimulus and CYPES budgets were split between Education and Lifelong Learning & Families. The table above shows as consistent a view of the Children's Services budgets as possible over five years minus special allocations. 

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 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 2018.

(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.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Pro​tection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.