Freedom of information

Report: 12
Date: 31 March 2005
By: Clerk

Summary

This report provides an update on public requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and proposes a charging regime for approval.

A. Recommendation

That the Committee agrees the charging regime set out in appendix 1 to this report.

B. Supporting information

1. The provisions of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act relating to the general right of public access to information held by public authorities came into force on 1 January this year. The Act gives anyone the right to request, in writing, information held by a public authority. Applicants do not have to quote the FoI Act nor do they have to give a reason for their request. The authority must supply the information unless it decides that one or more of a limited number of exemptions applies. Only some of these exemptions are absolute – the others are qualified and the authority must carry out a public interest test to come to a judgement on whether the public interest is better served by releasing the information than by withholding it.

2. The media have clearly made use of the Act to request information previously unavailable, particularly from Government departments and this has resulted in a number of news stories, from requests for the legal advice given to the Government prior to the invasion of Iraq to the culinary preferences of Humphrey the cat. A recent issue has been a number of requests to hospitals for success / failure rates for individual surgeons. Not all FoI requests have been serious – Hampshire Constabulary were recently asked for details of “eligible bachelors within Hampshire Constabulary between the ages of 35 and 49 and details of their email addresses, salary details and pension values.”

3. Requests to the MPA have, so far, been of a more modest nature both in number and subject matter. At the time of writing some 30 requests had been made which were recorded as FoI requests. Of these, seven were misdirected to the MPA, most of which were transferred to the MPS. Of the remainder, whatever information was held by the MPA was supplied (or the applicant informed that no information was held) although in two cases an exemption was applied to some of the information. In all bar two cases responses were made within the 20 working day deadline specified in the Act – those two cases were responded to within 22 working days.

4. The Act provides for the Secretary of State to determine a charging regime by regulation. This aspect of FoI was much delayed and the regulations were only laid before Parliament on 9 December 2004. In summary a public authority cannot charge a fee for information that would cost up to £450 to provide. This is based on an hourly rate of £25 and equates to approximately two and a half days of staff time to:

• determine whether the information is held
• locate and retrieve it
• extract the information (including any editing required)

5. If it is estimated that a response to the request would cost more than £450 the authority may decline to answer it or may charge a fee up to the total estimated cost of a reply (at £25 per staff hour).

6. An authority may, for any request, charge the costs of communicating information to an applicant, such as printing, photocopying and postage. However, the Department of Constitutional Affairs expects these charges to be waived where the cost is low.

7. The Sub-Committee is recommended to approve the charging regime set out in Appendix 1. This is in line with the practice of the Greater London Authority and other Functional Bodies in saying that:

• where the cost of answering a request is estimated to exceed £450, the MPA will not normally provide the information requested
• if, however, it does so it may charge up to the total estimated cost
• the MPA reserves the right to charge postage, printing and photocopying costs although where these are low they will be waived
• in some cases similar requests from one or more person will be aggregated for the purposes of estimating the cost

C. Equality and diversity implications

No specific implications in terms of the issues raised in this report. Equalities considerations are taken into account when responding to FoI requests, to ensure that there is equality of access and that no-one is disadvantaged by the process.

D. Financial implications

FoI has a financial impact in that there is a staff opportunity cost involved. But to date the FoI response has not required the provision of any additional staff resources. Any fees or costs charged in relation to FoI requests would offset costs incurred. However, the costs recovery is not expected to be significant.

E. Background papers

• None

F. Contact details

Report author: Simon Vile

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1: MPA charging regime for Freedom of Information requests

As provided for by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004

1. No fee will be charged where it is estimated that the cost of answering a request is up to £450 (eighteen hours of staff time). This estimate will take account of the following activities:

• determining whether the information is held
• locating and retrieving it
• extracting the information (including any editing required)

2. Where the estimated cost exceeds £450 the Authority will not normally provide the information requested. However, if the MPA considers it to be in the public interest to provide the information it may decide to do so. In such cases it is open to the Authority to charge up to the total estimated cost, at the rate of £25 per person hour specified in the regulations (or any subsequent rate set by the Secretary of State).

3. The MPA may charge production costs, for instance for printing, photocopying and postage, in respect of any application. However, in most cases these costs will be waived, particularly if they are low.

4. In certain circumstances, the costs of answering more than one request may be added together to determine whether the limit has been exceeded. The circumstances are as follows:

• two or more requests must be to the same authority
• they must be from the same person or from “different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign”
• the requests must relate to the same or similar information; and
• they must have been received by the public authority within a space of 60 consecutive working days

5. The Head of Secretariat is authorised to decide on:

• estimates of the time required to answer a request
• whether to decline to respond to a request where that response would cost more than £450 or whether in some cases the public interest would be better served by responding
• in the latter case what fee to charge
• whether to charge production costs
• whether to aggregate requests as set out in paragraph 4 above

6. In line with the existing procedure for Freedom of Information requests, an applicant may ask for a review of any decision taken in this way. This review will be arranged by the Deputy Chief Executive and Solicitor to the Authority and will be independent of the original decision maker.

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