It’s not you, it’s my document management system

In October 2010 the States asked the Policy Council to set out options for freedom of information. Sixteen years on, Jersey and the Isle of Man have both tied the knot, and Guernsey is the only Crown Dependency without a law. We have a code instead. By commitment standards, it is the ring pull off a can of lager. When the appeals panel set up to police it rules against a public body, that body is free to ignore the ruling.

What has not changed is the excuse. In 2011 a consultant hired by the Policy Council advised putting “the right information management processes in place” first. In 2013 the Policy Council said the island must “develop the right climate and culture before beginning to consider if a statutory framework is required”. Whatever that means, it amounts to waiting for the turkeys to get into the right frame of mind to vote for Christmas. In 2017 Gavin St Pier, then President of Policy & Resources, told deputies that “without an effective document management process” a law “is not manageable”. By 2021 the objection was cost, and only eight deputies voted for a law.

Each was a variation on “it’s not you, it’s me”. None came with a test that would tell anyone when the island was ready. A precondition with no finish line amounts to a refusal.

The promises made instead fared no better. In 2013 the Policy Council was told to report within a year on an independent appeal. A year later it had not been done. A review of the code due in 2015 never reached the States. An appeals panel followed the 2021 debate, and in January the President of Scrutiny, Andy Sloan, said its rulings had been ignored on “a small but significant number” of occasions. He spoke of a “default tendency to restrict information rather than to publish it”.

The records work that was meant to come first is hard to find. In 2017 St Pier could point to document management systems in just two parts of the States, and I can find no published records management policy since.

The States’ own website does not inspire confidence either. When I went through every response on its freedom of information disclosure log for the Deputy Scorecard, some of the older entries on gov.gg carried the date of the reply rather than the request. A government that cannot date its own disclosure log will not put its filing in order without a deadline.

Deputies should ask where these arguments come from. Under our committee system they have no political advisers, and the policy letters and briefings they rely on are written by officers. When Scrutiny reviewed the code in 2019 and 2020, the main case against a law was Policy & Resources’ written evidence, part of it supplied by the communications team that runs the code. The people who would have to answer the requests were the main witnesses on whether the public should have a right to make them.

This is not a conspiracy. No organisation volunteers to be scrutinised, and in 2003 Ireland narrowed its own Act after a review run entirely by senior civil servants. But the same advice has outlasted four Chief Ministers, and an argument that survives every political change usually comes from the part of government that stayed put. Some deputies, new to the job and short of time, are taking it on trust.

The objections also look weaker against the States’ own figures. In 2017 St Pier said a “substantial increase in the number of requests” might show whether Guernsey was ready to legislate. Published responses have more than doubled since 2019, from 64 to 152 in 2025. The goalposts, naturally, have moved.

The 2021 cost estimates, up to £2.68 million to set up and £900,000 a year, were Jersey’s. Scrutiny found that most of the day-to-day cost is already being paid under the code. The Isle of Man, closer to us in scale, expected about £500,000 to set up and £200,000 a year to run.

Other jurisdictions offer a way out of this quagmire, and it starts with naming the day. They passed the law first and set a fixed date to get ready. Jersey legislated in 2011 and started in 2015. The Isle of Man passed its Act in 2015 and brought public bodies in a group at a time until 2018. Bermuda allowed five years between law and start, Gibraltar nearly three. The deadline is what got the filing done.

Where readiness was made the condition for legislating, it never arrived. In 2013 Sierra Leone’s Cabinet Secretary blamed the delay to its bill on “poor records management”. The campaigner Edetaen Ojo called this the government’s “standard strategy over the last 10 years” and suggested the records were in such a state because there was no law.

Married life has its difficulties. Four years after Jersey’s law began, its auditor called progress on records management “disappointing”. Tony Blair later called himself a “naïve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop” for passing the UK Act. He regretted it because it worked.

The route to the altar is short. Give the appeals panel the power to compel compliance, as Scrutiny said in January it would propose. Audit the States’ records and publish a date against each fix. Pass a Freedom of Information law this term with a commencement date two or three years out, phased in committee by committee as the Isle of Man did. Then have Scrutiny report progress every year so the date cannot slip quietly.

The Government Work Plan agreed in January commits the States to “fostering trust, transparency and accountability”. Deputies who mean it should ask officials to name the day. If they cannot, the island should stop waiting for a ring.