Charging for Information

Charging for Information

The Crofting Commission does not charge for most information requests. Straightforward requests, requests for your own personal information, and Freedom of Information requests are normally free. We may charge for larger Environmental Information Requests if they are expected to take more than one working day to process. If a charge applies, we will tell you the estimated cost before carrying out the work, and you can decide whether to continue with your request.

Read more below for our detailed Charging for Information Policy. You can read our Schedule of Charges at the bottom of this page.

Scope

This page describes the charges that the Crofting Commission uses for providing information, covering the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 (FOISA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).

We do not charge for most information

There are 3 types of requests we receive and deal with:

1. Straightforward requests which take less than a day to process (these will be processed free of charge)
2. Larger or more complex requests, where we may have to give you an estimate of the cost that you will have to pay before we provide the information
3. Very large requests which we may not be able to process.

Please see our Schedule of Charges at the bottom of this page for more information.

Data Protection – Information about yourself

We do not normally charge for processing or providing this information.

Calculating The Cost of Providing Information Under FOISA

When estimating the cost, we will include all costs likely to be incurred in:

• Determining whether we hold the information requested
• Locating the information or documents containing the information
• Retrieving such information or documents, and
• Extracting the information from the document containing it (including redacting information).

We will not include in the calculation the cost of the time we spend deciding whether or not it is in the public interest to disclose information.

Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) – Information About the Environment or Matters Affecting It

Under Environmental Information Regulations a reasonable charge may be made for supplying information. This may include the actual costs of staff time taken to locate information and put it in an appropriate format for release, and the costs in transferring the information to the requestor.

What Can Be Charged

There are two types of activity under EIR that public authorities can charge for:

1. The cost of staff time spent locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
2. The costs incurred when printing or copying the information and sending to the applicant.

The Commission must be able to demonstrate why a charge in a particular case is reasonable. The Commission must provide a breakdown of charges so the requestor can understand the basis for the fee.

What Cannot Be Charged For

There are three costs the Commission cannot charge for:

1. The costs of maintaining a register of information or a database.
2. Overhead costs (e.g. wider staff overheads).
3. Staff time spent reviewing information (although there are cases where staff time in this instance can be taken into account when considering if a request is Vexatious/Manifestly Unreasonable due to excessive burden on staff resource and time).

We also cannot charge requestors for inspecting the information or accessing public registers or lists of environmental information.

The Commission cannot make a charge specifically for allowing access to the information in situ. However, EIR does allow the Commission to make a charge to recover the costs of locating the information and collating it in order to make it available for inspection. A charge made for locating and collating information to be inspected must be ‘reasonable’.

If the information is held in a system that allows for straightforward public access it is unlikely that a charge is reasonable. If a requestor asks for inspection of material that would require a significant cost to prepare for inspection, the EIR allows the authority to make a charge.

Charges

Public authorities must have a published schedule of charges in order to be able to charge applicants for environmental information. Please see our Schedule of Charges at the bottom of this page for more information.

Charging Threshold

The Commission will only charge for EIR requests where the time taken to comply with the request is estimated to exceed 1 working day (7 hours). This is the Commission’s assessment of a fair threshold to allow for the majority of requests to be handled without charge (and therefore to comply with the requirement not to allow charging to be seen as a deterrent to requests), but equally to protect the Commission’s resources against large and complex requests.

As stated, staff should use the Commission schedule of costs to estimate how long it will take to comply with a request. If complying with a request will exceed the 1 working day threshold, the requestor will be charged for the total number of hours it takes to complete the request. For example, if it is estimated that complying with a request will take 8 hours, the requestor will be charged for 8 hours, not just for the hour that exceeds the threshold.

Manifestly Unreasonable

Where it is estimated that complying with a request will exceed 18 hours, the Commission will consider whether the request is in fact Manifestly Unreasonable under Regulation 12(4)(b) of EIR, and will use existing procedures for doing so; including applying the Public Interest Test and providing advice and assistance to the requestor in order to narrow down the scope of their request.

Payment of Fees

We tell you the estimated charge before doing any charged work. Where charges apply, we require payment before compiling and supplying information. If you do not pay within three months of being notified of the charge, the request will be closed.

We will provide information in alternative formats (such as Braille, large print, or audio) upon request at no extra cost, in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

Schedule of Charges

You can download a copy of our Charging for Information Policy by clicking on the button below.