Charging Policy : prescribed costs

Prescribed costs

2.1 Section 13 of the FOI Act states that fees can be charged for requests above the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit set by the Regulations is £600 for central government bodies:

• Information will be supplied free of charge for requests where prescribed costs are less than £600.
• This ceiling of £600 should also apply to information requested under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs)

2.2 Where a request is estimated to exceed £600 (3 days work equivalent on the basis of an 8 hour day) HSE will:

• Advise the requestor that the request has been refused on cost grounds as the diversion of resource from HSE’s regulatory and enforcement function cannot be justified. It is only in exceptional circumstances that HSE would consider making a disclosure costing over £600.
• Where information falls under the EIRs, take into account cost and the diversion of resource when considering the exception relating to ‘manifestly unreasonable’ or ‘too general.’ (EIRs Section 12(4)(b) and 12(4)(c)).
• In both of the above circumstances HSE will provide advice and assistance to help applicants narrow down or clarify their requests before refusing.

2.3 To achieve consistency, all public authorities use the same hourly rate of £25 per staff member for estimating costs, regardless of seniority.

2.4 The prescribed costs of answering a request are defined as:

• determining whether the information requested is held;
• locating and retrieving it;
• extracting the information to be disclosed from other information, including the first time an individual working in HSE reads information for this purpose (although any subsequent readings, or if the information is passed to others to read, will not be included); and
• communicating information. This doesn’t include the cost of disbursements (described below), but can include the time taken to write a response to the request, edit or redact information.

2.5 The following items will not be included in the prescribed costs:

• The costs involved in considering whether material should be classed as exempt under the Act or whether exempt information should be disclosed under the public interest test. This includes both staff time and the cost of any legal advice that HSE may choose to seek. It also covers situations where HSE can neither confirm nor deny that it holds requested information.
• The costs involved in considering whether a request is vexatious or a repeated request.
• Consulting third parties prior to sending out the information.
• Overheads, including IT running costs, superannuation costs, building-related costs (heating, lighting etc).
• The time taken to calculate the fees notice, including time taken when aggregating requests.
• The time taken to check that a request for information meets the requirements of the FOI Act (as described in section 8 of the Act).
• Advice and assistance provided under section 16 of the Act