Off Island Care Providers

​​Request 857479932

In response to FOI 843017227, Government stated: 

"The contracts in place with off island providers...are designed to provide assurance through robust contract management, assurance and oversight arrangements. Where therapeutic services form part of the provision, providers are contractually required to ensure that these are delivered by appropriately qualified and registered practitioners..." 

However, it also states contracts do not require providers to report staff credentials back to Jersey. 

To verify this "robust" assurance is effective, please provide: 

1 - Copies of the contract templates showing how "appropriately qualified and registered practitioners" is defined, and what evidence providers must give to demonstrate this.

2 - For children placed off island for therapeutic reasons\, please provide (in aggregate, not per-child): 

a) How many children have documented therapeutic need?

b) How does Government verify the assigned therapist has the specialism to address that need?

c) What records document this verification?

3 - To demonstrate the "robust" oversight claimed, please provide records of audits or monitoring visits conducted in the last 24 months (1 Jan 2024 to 31 Dec 2025) that verified therapeutic staff are registered with their professional regulators (HCPC, UKCP, BACP, etc.), and what findings resulted.

4 - If no such audits occurred, please specify what "effective supervision, training and governance" and "robust oversight" consist of in practice.

​Response

1. The full contract template would be used to produce a bespoke contract with each third party provider and therefore the department have determined that Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied.

2. a) Eleven of the children currently placed off island have a documented therapeutic need.

b) Contract conditions ensure that those practitioners who are being utilised are appropriately qualified and hold relevant membership of the relevant professional bodies to which they are affiliated.

Each provider is assessed during a pre-placement Comprehensive Quality Assurance process. This includes a section relating to Safer Recruitment processes. A staff training matrix is produced which details each staff member within that placement, their relevant qualifications and a check through staff files.

c) See response to question 2b.

3. The Comprehensive Quality Assurance process and monitoring visits form part of the contract with the third party provider, the department have determined that Article 33 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied.

4. See responses to Q2.b

Articles 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

Article 33 is a qualified exemption and as such, CYPES has conducted a prejudice test as required by law.

When responding to requests of this nature, CYPES are required to balance the public interest with the impact that disclosing this information would, or would be likely to, have upon the organisation and / or third parties. Whilst it may be in the public interest to understand the content of the contract templates in relation to off island care providers, protecting the commercial interests of CYPES is essential.

​Disclosing information that may be provided within a contract will mean that CYPES are in breach of their contract with those third-party providers and this would prejudice the commercial interests of CYPES.

When considering the application of this exemption, CYPES has determined that whilst it is in the public interest to disclose the requested contract information, this is outweighed by the necessity to limit any impact on its commercial interests in ensuring contractual obligations are met, Article 33 has been applied.