States officials move to keep boss’s contract secret

Wednesday 19 September 2018

Senior States officials have decided to keep their boss’s contract locked away, judging that the interests of taxpayers footing his £250k yearly salary bill were not “sufficient” to release it.

They added that sharing States Chief Charlie Parker’s employment terms would have “potentially damaging consequences” for the States of Jersey, but did not state what these were.

The decision came in response to an appeal by Express against the States’ refusal to supply Mr Parker’s contract under the Freedom of Information Law. Express will now be referring the case to the Office of the Information Commissioner. 

Originally submitted in April, the FOI request was aimed to make public the terms under which Mr Parker has been handed the reins to conduct the largest ever shake-up to island's public sector, making decisions directly affecting around 7,000 people, and with implications for everyone else living in Jersey. 

It came amid calls for greater openness after it emerged that he had already been handed full residential rights, something the island's politicians judged to be of sufficient public interest to prompt a debate in the Assembly leading to a change in the rules.

Pictured: Mr Parker has already been handed full residential rights. The FOI request would have revealed what other 'perks', if any, he had been handed. 

Those calls intensified when Express revealed that Mr Parker has been working since January without specific and detailed 'key performance indicators' to assess his success in the role, rather than just general "milestone objectives" such as changing the culture in the States or creating 'one government'.

When the request for his contract was refused after months of delays, which were in breach of FOI regulations, Express appealed and an internal review was conducted. 

After three additional delays, the two unnamed “senior” members of States staff who undertook it upheld the decision not to release any information about the contract. This was despite one of its key perks – ‘quallies’ allowing him unrestricted access to the housing market and the ability to enjoy the tax benefits of moving his UK pension to Jersey - had already been made public in a Ministerial decision.

They argued that the entire contract was “personal information”, exempt under Article 25 of the FOI Law, and that releasing it could cause a data protection issue.

Moreover, they concluded that “the interests of the public were [not] sufficient to justify the release of the information.” This, they said, was because negotiations underpinning the contract were likely to have been “sensitive” and “wide-ranging”, leading to “an expectation… of confidentiality” – a factor apparently trumping the public interest test.

The reviewers added that releasing a document “of this type could have unintended and potentially damaging consequences with wider repercussions for the States of Jersey”, but failed to provide any detail on why there would be detrimental effects and what these could be.

Pictured: Mr Parker has been working without measurable performance indicators since he was appointed.

Significant delays in the FOI process of several months were acknowledged, but officials explained that this was because “the complexity of the case did need particular care to be applied as it could establish a clear precedent for public employment.” 

Express Editor, James Filleul, commented: "The States already judge information such as Mr Parker's salary, and the deal on his residential rights, to be of sufficient public interest to openly publish them; but for some reason, any other contractual terms - such as the duration of the contract including any severance arrangements, or any other agreed inducements - are now deemed to be 'personal information' and so exempt from publication. 

"Personal details such as tax or social security numbers, bank details or home address could easily, and rightly, be redacted; but we think the other terms are of sufficient public interest, given Mr Parker's extensive remit and seniority, to be released. He is in a very different situation to 99% of States employees, so there is no precedent to be set. 

"States members themselves clearly thought that the contractual terms were of considerable public importance, given they recently based a debate on one of those terms, and opted to change the general rules following that debate.

"Our request for this contract has nothing to do with the actual work Mr Parker is doing; we simply believe that it is of public interest for the terms under which his massive reform of the public sector was agreed, should be known by the people who pay for those terms to be delivered."

Although not within the scope of the review – or Express’ original request – the reviewers gave their assurance they were “satisfied that the terms of the Chief Executive’s appointment had been determined by due process.”