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The Island’s competition watchdog has welcomed the move by the States to make public notices freely available online, rather than exclusively in the JEP Gazette.
The notices deal with a wide range of local life from new legislation, public meetings and road closures, to dog licences, elections, or companies in liquidation - but for the last 56 years the law has stipulated that official notices had to be published in the Jersey Gazette, which in turn, had to appear in the Jersey Evening Post.
A spokesman for the Chief Minister's Department confirmed that while notices could appear on gov.je immediately, a proposed law change would be considered by Ministers and come into effect before the end of this year.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that the Gazette is worth around £278,065 to the newspaper every year just from States departments, with revenue from the parishes and the whole private sector on top of that. Now, the Chief Minister’s department has announced that public notices can appear online, for free, on the gov.je website, and Twitter.
Channel Island Competition Regulatory Authority Chief Executive Mike Byrne has welcomed the move.
He said: “CICRA has been advising the States for some time that the current exclusivity given to the publication of Gazette notices is unfair and did not create a level playing field; this is even more of the case in the digital age.
“CICRA is pleased to see signs of progress in this area and looks forward to the final removal of the legal barriers that remain in place to the publication of Gazette notices.”
You can read the Official Notices section on the States website here.
A printed copy of a month’s Gazette notices will also be available from the Central Library, the Island’s Parish Halls and States buildings.
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