This summarises the main steps public authorities need to go through when considering whether to charge for a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Further detail on each of these stages is described in the full guidance.
If information is exempt from FOI, then FOI fees will not apply. In many cases, authorities will not know if the information is exempt until the information has been located and checked. However, authorities may well know immediately upon receipt of the request that the information is exempt, usually because it is reasonably accessible to applicants elsewhere. For example, if the information has to be made available under the terms of another Act or is available through the authority's publication scheme, it is automatically exempt from FOI. If information has to be provided under the terms of another Act, fees should be charged in line with the provisions in that Act. Authorities wishing to charge for information that is made available through the publication scheme should make clear whether charges will apply as part of the scheme. FOI fees will not apply in either case. The authority would need to contact the applicant to inform him or her that the information is exempt in the usual way. Exempt information is discussed in part 5 of the guidance.
In many cases, it will be immediately obvious that the request would cost less than the appropriate limit so there will be no point in calculating whether the appropriate limit is exceeded.
Aggregation, where the cost of answering requests is added together, is not likely to happen often. It can only take place when an authority receives two or more requests from the same person, or different people acting together or as part of a campaign. The requests must be on the same or a similar subject, and be made within 60 working days of each other. If these conditions are met, the cost of the requests can be added together when calculating whether the appropriate limit has been met. Aggregation is described in part 2.4 of the guidance and in the annex.
The appropriate limit is £600 for central government and Parliament, and £450 for other public authorities, with staff costs calculated at a rate of £25 per hour. When calculating whether the appropriate limit is exceeded, authorities can take account of the costs of determining whether the information is held, locating and retrieving the information, and extracting the information from other documents. They cannot take account of the costs involved with considering whether information is exempt under the Act. Part 2 of the guidance describes in more detail how public authorities should calculate whether the appropriate limit is met.
If a request would cost less than the appropriate limit, the authority can only charge for the cost of informing the applicant whether the information is held, and communicating the information to the applicant (e.g. photocopying, printing and postage costs). This is described in more detail in part 3 of the guidance.
If a request would cost more than the appropriate limit, the authority can turn the request down, answer and charge a fee, or answer and waive the fee. If it decides to charge a fee, and does not have other powers to do so, it can charge on the basis of the costs outlined in step 3 (ie those costs used to determine whether the appropriate limit was met), as well as the cost of informing the applicant whether the information is held and communicating the information to the applicant. This is described in more detail in part 4 of the guidance.
The access regimes most likely to be encountered apart from FOI are:
Information about the Data Protection Act is available at www.dca.gov.uk/foi/datprot.htm and www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Information about the Environmental Information Regulations is available at http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengov/index.htm
The three regimes have different fee provisions:
The Freedom of Information Act amended the Data Protection Act so that individuals can make subject access requests to public authorities on “unstructured personal data”. The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 affect the Data Protection Act only insofar as authorities can refuse subject access requests for unstructured personal data where the cost of these is estimated to exceed the appropriate limit. The same appropriate limit applies both to subject access requests for unstructured personal data and FOI requests. Public authorities should follow the procedures outlined in step 3 above to calculate whether a subject access request for unstructured personal data would exceed the appropriate limit. These Regulations do not affect other forms of personal data subject access; nor do they affect whether, and if so what, fees can be charged for any subject access requests.
Any fees that are charged for subject access requests, including for unstructured personal information, must be charged in accordance with the existing Data Protection (Subject Access) (Fees and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2000, available at: http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2000/20000191.htm