Costs and fees

Freedom of Information Act 2000

Section 9 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to charge a fee for releasing information. The conditions under which this fee can be charged are set by SI 2004/3244.

Regulation 6 limits the maximum fee to the total costs the authority expects to incur in relation to:

• informing the person making the request whether it holds the information, and
• communicating the information to the person making the request.

including (6(3)):

• converting the information into the requested form
• copying it
• posting it

but not the costs of staff time (6(4)).