There will be no charge for most Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. This is because, by law, we cannot charge you if it would cost us less than £100 to provide you with the information.
There may be a charge if you request a lot of information or if the information would take us a long time to produce.
If it would cost us more than £100 to provide information to you, we will send you a fees notice. The first £100 of information is always free. We do not have to provide information if it would cost us £600 or more. We charge 10% of the cost over £100, up to the limit of £600.
We work out the charge as follows:
- Staff time is charged at the actual hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per hour. We can charge for locating, retrieving and providing information to you. We cannot charge for deciding whether or not to give out the information.
- Photocopying is charged at 10 pence per A4 sheet for black and white and 30 pence for colour.
- Postage is charged at actual rate for first class mail.
You have 3 months from the date you receive the fees notice to decide whether to pay the charge. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to go ahead with the request, there will be no charge to you.
Charging for environmental information is slightly different. For more information on FOI fees, please read the EIRs Guidance: Charging for environmental information published by the Scottish Information Commissioner.