The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004
| Year | 2004 |
2004 No. 3244
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
DATA PROTECTION
The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004
Made 7th December 2004
Laid before Parliament 9th December 2004
Coming into force 1st January 2005
The Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred upon him by sections 9(3) and (4), 12(3), (4) and (5), and 13(1) and (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 20001, and by sections 9A(5) and 67(2) of the Data Protection Act 19982, and having consulted the Information Commissioner in accordance with section 67(3) of the Data Protection Act 1998, hereby makes the following Regulations:
Citation and commencement
1. These Regulations may be cited as the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and come into force on 1st January 2005.
Interpretation
2. In these Regulations—
“the 2000 Act” means the Freedom of Information Act 2000;
“the 1998 Act” means the Data Protection Act 1998; and
“the appropriate limit” is to be construed in accordance with the provision made in regulation 3.
The appropriate limit
3.—(1) This regulation has effect to prescribe the appropriate limit referred to in section 9A(3) and (4) of the 1998 Act and the appropriate limit referred to in section 12(1) and (2) of the 2000 Act.
(2) In the case of a public authority which is listed in Part I of Schedule 1 to the 2000 Act, the appropriate limit is £600.
(3) In the case of any other public authority, the appropriate limit is £450.
Estimating the cost of complying with a request – general
4.—(1) This regulation has effect in any case in which a public authority proposes to estimate whether the cost of complying with a relevant request would exceed the appropriate limit.
(2) A relevant request is any request to the extent that it is a request–
(a)
(a) for unstructured personal data within the meaning of section 9A(1) of the 1998 Act3, and to which section 7(1) of that Act would, apart from the appropriate limit, to any extent apply, or
(b)
(b) information to which section 1(1) of the 2000 Act would, apart from the appropriate limit, to any extent apply.
(3) In a case in which this regulation has effect, a public authority may, for the purpose of its estimate, take account only of the costs it reasonably expects to incur in relation to the request in–
(a)
(a) determining whether it holds the information,
(b)
(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the information,
(c)
(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the information, and
(d)
(d) extracting the information from a document containing it.
(4) To the extent to which any of the costs which a public authority takes into account are attributable to the time which persons undertaking any of the activities mentioned in paragraph (3) on behalf of the authority are expected to spend on those activities, those costs are to be estimated at a rate of £25 per person per hour.
Estimating the cost of complying with a request – aggregation of related requests
5.—(1) In circumstances in which this regulation applies, where two or more requests for information to which section 1(1) of the 2000 Act would, apart from the appropriate limit, to any extent apply, are made to a public authority—
(a)
(a) by one person, or
(b)
(b) by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,
the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the total costs which may be taken into account by the authority, under regulation 4, of complying with all of them.
(2) This regulation applies in circumstances in which–
(a)
(a) the two or more requests referred to in paragraph (1) relate, to any extent, to the same or similar information, and
(b)
(b) those requests are received by the public authority within any period of sixty consecutive working days.
(3) In this regulation, “working day” means any day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a day which is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 19714in any part of the United Kingdom.
Maximum fee for complying with section 1(1) of the 2000 Act
6.—(1) Any fee to be charged under section 9 of the 2000 Act by a public authority to whom a request for information is made is not to exceed the maximum determined by the public authority in accordance with this regulation.
(2) Subject to paragraph (4), the maximum fee is a sum equivalent to the total costs the public authority reasonably expects to incur...
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