Fury at plans to charge for Freedom of Information requests
Plans to make people pay for Freedom of Information requests have been labelled 'ludicrous'.
Hampshire County Council has agreed to request the Local Government Association (LGA) petitions the government to relax the FoI Act, to enable it to charge some applicants for information. Under national law, the council currently provides FoI responses free, only requesting any money if a request takes more than 450 worth of 'chargeable time', based on staff costs of 25 per hour. It estimates that in the financial year 2009-10, when 707 FoI requests were made, it spent 346,000 answering queries.
In a discussion of its FoI practice and expenditure, the council's cabinet agreed to push the LGA to allow it to charge for FoIs. Councillor Colin Davidovitz, cabinet member for communications and efficiency, said: 'There's no doubt that newspapers use the information they receive from FoIs to benefit a great deal, by putting it on their front page to sell more papers. They are benefiting from research we do on their behalf, at our expense. We also provide information to researchers. I see nothing wrong with charging organisations who benefit from the information we give them, for the service we provide. Why should taxpayers pay for newspapers to benefit?'
Council leader Councillor Ken Thornber said: 'We will ask the LGA to push for us to be allowed to charge commercial organisations where the data supplied is of commercial value to them.'
The Campaign for Freedom of Information's chairman Maurice Frankel said: 'The Act is designed so companies looking for information to improve their own contracts, or compete with the council, can be refused. We have no real objection to straightforward commercial requests carrying a charge.
'But researchers work for charities and universities, as well as for companies, while newspapers are an important point of scrutiny of local authorities. Neither should be discouraged from their work, which is an important part of transparent government. We'd definitely oppose such a measure.'
Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, added: 'It's ludicrous. Hampshire County Council should remember this information doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the public'
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