An audit of States communications protocols, which was only released following an FoI request, made a string of criticisms including that the way that the States had been communicating with Islanders had not been fit for purpose, despite costing taxpayers millions of pounds a year.
It laid out 60 actions points including one that said: ‘Communications should have a formal role in approving sensitive/reputation-critical FoIs, and a revised process should be put in place to provide for this.’
However, communications director Stephen Hardwick has denied on Twitter that this is now policy, saying that the report was written in November and that that particular action point had since been scrapped.
Meanwhile, a States spokesman said that individual departments were responsible for providing FoI answers.
The Freedom of Information Law came into effect in January 2015, enabling members of the public to request information from States departments.
The spokesman added: ‘The FoI team previously reported to a communications manager. The communications audit recommended that the FoI team should be separate from the communications function, but that there should be close liaison between the teams on sensitive FoIs. The audit also recommended that communications should have a role in approving sensitive FoIs.
‘The actual process for answering FoIs includes escalating requests with a higher reputational risk to the departmental director general, the communications director, and the chief executive, as necessary. This is for notification, and the communications director is not part of the approval decision. It remains the legal responsibility of departments to finalise answers to FoI requests.’
Responding to criticism that blocking potentially embarrassing information from being made public would undermine the effect of the FoI Law, Mr Hardwick said on Twitter that no requests for information would be rejected unless it could cause economic damage to the Island.
He said: ‘To reiterate: comms doesn’t approve or reject FoIs. But I can guarantee that I wouldn’t advise rejection to avoid embarrassment – nor does FoI Law allow it. Though there’s a legal exemption if reputational damage could cause economic damage to Jersey.’ He added that the central communications team would be made aware of FoI requests so that they were prepared to answer follow-up questions from the media.
The States have recently been running a major recruitment drive to fill a number of communications jobs. Currently 15 people are in post or have been recruited and a further five roles have yet to be filled.
Most of the new recruits are due to start in the autumn.
