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Do Government Ministers stay at Premier Inns, Hiltons or Ritz-Carltons during their travels, and how much does it cost the taxpayer?
Information about Ministers' travel expenses remains a secret as the Government's Freedom of Information unit has refused two of Express's requests for details about ministerial hotel stays in the past two years.
In the first, the FOI unit said that revealing the details of the hotels used by Ministers would either "endanger the safety of an individual" or "endanger the physical or mental health of an individual" and refused to release the information.
Pictured: The response said that "the Government of Jersey has concluded that the public interest in disclosing this information is outweighed by the risk that may be incurred by its release".
In a subsequent request, Express asked for details including the price, date and location of each stay – adding that it was fine to redact hotel names and use a code such as "Hotel A" or "Hotel B" if necessary.
In its response, the FOI unit cited its previous answer – which said that giving out hotel names would endanger the safety of Ministers.
It added that the information was not held centrally and that finding the information would take up too many resources.
This was despite information relating to overseas trips and hotel stays of Ministers and senior civil servants having been shared previously.
In 2014, it emerged two senior Jersey civil servants had spent £950 each to stay at the five-star Hilton Hotel in Cape Town.
In 2017, Express secured details of then-Senator Philip Ozouf's purchase card spending, which included a £647.22 stay at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Qatar in 2014.
A 2023 request made under the Freedom of Information Law requested the amounts spent on foreign travel.
The response said that this information did not need to be provided as it was due to be published on the Government website in September 2023. The expenses were never published.
Pictured: In 2017, Express secured details of then-Senator Philip Ozouf's purchase card spending.
When it has been requested, the Government has in the past revealed the cost of travel – with previous responses revealing, for example, that Deputy Hilary Jeune (who was then Energy and Climate Change Minister) had spent £1,800.11 on accommodation to attend COP27.
In December 2022, it was revealed that then-Chief Minister Kristina Moore had spent £1,598.02 on hotels since her appointment that July, while Treasury Minister Ian Gorst had spent £4,876.05 on hotels for himself and another Government officer.
However, the name of the hotel was not revealed in either case.
Meanwhile in Guernsey, a detailed list of senior politicians' travel expenses was recently published – and revealed how the costs of attending COP28 rocketed after a Guernsey delegation moved from a Premier Inn to stay in luxury hotel apartments.
Deputies Jonathan Le Tocq and Lindsay de Sausmarez, and two civil servants, stayed at the Mercure Hotel Apartments Dubai Barsha Heights, accommodation that cost a total of £9,709.30. Its website describes the hotel as "41 floors of understated elegance".
Meanwhile, a Premier Inn stay for the same duration would have cost just £516.
The Government previously regularly released details of any travel over £500 in an online spreadsheet - but this has stopped being released via its OpenData website.
Reports on Government travel spending figures were first due to be published in early 2023.
However, due to major issues with the finance part of the Government's new IT system, officials said they would instead be released in May and June 2023.
However, this was then pushed back as resources had to be diverted to deal with the IT problems.
Pictured: Issues with the switch to a new IT system were previously blamed for the delays in releasing the figures.
Express was then told that islanders would have to wait until the end of July to discover details about the use of consultants for the second half of 2022 and details of Ministerial travel and expenses from 1st July 2022 to 30th June 2023.
In August 2023, Cabinet Office officials said that islanders would have to wait until September at the earliest.
When the previous Council of Ministers was ousted following a vote of no confidence in Chief Minsiter Kristina Moore in January 2024, they were still yet to release any details of their own spending on travel after 18 months in office.
And now, over two years since the last election, these figures still remain unpublished.
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