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Charges for access to publicly held information

As most of you will now be aware, since 6^th April and in some cases before this date councils have been charging for access to information held on behalf of the public.

The charging rules state that councils should only charge for costs directly incurred in providing the refined data, not for access, and only on a cost recovery basis. In most cases this actually means that councils could not charge for access to the information, which is what search companies want. To get round this many councils are only making the information available in refined state. They then think that this entitles them to charge for access to the information. In fact they are miss interpreting the rules as they cannot under any circumstances charge for access only for providing the information. Further to this many are providing a one stop shop and providing print outs of the information, adding an administration charge to the cost of the information. This again is against the rules for charging as the cost of providing the information is in fact an administration charge. When Pali asked to see the profit and lose accounts of the land charges departments of various councils they all showed a profit. As the charges should be on a cost recovery basis this is also against the rules as there is no cost to recover. It is quite illuminating when the cost are provided as the councils load every thing they can think of onto the cost of providing the information to the extent that Wirral even list pension contributions, holiday pay and one hundred pounds car allowance for desk bound staff. How they can contribute to the cost of providing access to information when they have retired or are on holiday I don’t know. They have so far not provided the income. The highest legal opinion available currently considers that most if not all the information required to complete a personal search is environmental and therefore should be free to access. Pali’s challenge on this point is currently with the Information Commissioner and Pali is keeping a record of all the illegal charges it is paying. When the ICO rules that the information is environmental Pali will be claiming all the monies back together with damages. Watch this space.