The request, received on 1 September as part of an FoI Watch ‘campaign’ launched by online news site Bailiwick Express as part of what it described as its ‘commitment to transparency’, asked how the States recorded and responded to approaches from the island’s news media, including the volume of enquiries, response times, and any that go unanswered.
In its reply, the Policy & Resources Committee said it had weighed up applying an exemption within the FoI code, which covers voluminous or vexatious requests.
While as a matter of general principle we felt it would have reasonably qualified, we have also sought to balance that against the FoI code’s presumption of disclosure and the committee’s commitment to that principle,’ it said.
‘The response is what we consider to be a proportionate use of officer resource, extracting as much information held as reasonably possible while also being conscious of the significant volume of the request. Essentially, while we feel this request could legitimately have resulted in the application of the exemption, we have sought to be as helpful as possible to the requester by providing a substantive response, albeit not answering every single question or request.’
The figures it did release show the number of media enquiries recorded by the States has fallen sharply, from 2,463 in 2023 to 2,065 in 2024 and 1,418 in 2025. A further 1,018 had been logged by the end of July this year.
Over the same period, the States has kept up a steady flow of its own announcements, issuing 552 proactive media releases or social media posts in 2023, 450 in 2024 and 507 in 2025, with 419 already in the first seven months of 2026.
The committee said 95.75% of enquiries were answered on time in 2023, rising to 96.5% in 2025 and so far in 2026. Those figures are measured against the communications team’s own four urgency categories, which set target response times ranging from the same day for urgent, breaking stories to two working days for topical ones, 10 working days for lower-priority enquiries, and 20 for investigative ones.
The States said it did not record a number of the things the request asked for, including average or median response times, the number of enquiries left unanswered, the number outstanding at the end of each year, or any register of complaints from journalists.
It said its focus was on recording ‘meaningful data for KPI purposes’ while avoiding ‘an overly bureaucratic and time-consuming record keeping process’.
Media enquiries are handled by the States communications team, which has 11 staff, seven of whom regularly deal with the media on behalf of all committees and public services.
The team also runs the States’ websites and social media channels – its Facebook page alone is followed by more than 43,000 people – and is on call around the clock for crises.
The data released covers 2023 onwards. The request had sought figures back to 2019, but the States said the longest centrally-held record readily available began in January 2023.
Bailiwick Express, which is owned by All Island Media, which also publishes the Jersey Evening Post, justified the questions raised to understand why its mixed experience of interactions with the States comms team were ‘isolated or part of a wider pattern’.
‘The aim is not to prejudge why individual responses may take time, but to build a clearer, evidence-based picture of how the system works and whether it provides timely access to information for journalists and, ultimately, the public.’
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