Arrangements for Freedom of Information: Follow-up

Background

The Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (the Law) came in to force on 1 January 2015 replacing the previous Code of Practice on Public Access to Official Information. The Law was introduced to provide access to public information to individuals and organisations except when there is a good reason not to.

In March 2016 the C&AG reported the findings of her review of the arrangements for Freedom of Information (FoI). She concluded that the States had established arrangements that allowed substantial compliance with their statutory responsibilities under the Law and had improved document archiving. However, she also highlighted areas for improvement and made a range of recommendations.

Scope

The objectives of the review are to evaluate:

• the progress the States of Jersey have made in implementing agreed recommendations
• the extent to which the recommendations as implemented have addressed the improvement areas identified in the report; and
• the adequacy of plans for the implementation of any outstanding recommendations.

Conclusions

There has been some progress in implementing the C&AG’s previous recommendations, for example in developing comprehensive guidance for handling FoI requests. However, a number of key actions agreed to implement the C&AG’s previous recommendations have repeatedly stalled. Overall progress, particularly in records management, is disappointing.