Wester Ross Area DSFB charging schedule for Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (‘EISR’) requests.
Wester Ross Area Salmon Fishery Board is not a typical ‘public authority’ and it has access to limited funding, much of which it raises from fishing proprietors in the district. This funding is used to deliver on its statutory remit to protect salmon fisheries in its district. DSFBs have a duty to be open and transparent, including an obligation to respond to EISR requests, but Wester Ross Area DSFB needs to ensure that its limited staff and financial resources are targeted at fulfilling its statutory responsibilities.
Wester Ross Area DSFB is entitled to charge for making information available in response to requests under EISR as per Regulation 8 (1) of the EISR. Accordingly, Wester Ross Area DSFB reserves the right to charge a fee for the provision of environmental information under EISR where it estimates that the time requirement for answering the enquiry is significant. We regard a significant amount of time to be more than 2 hours work.
The following actions will incur charges:
- Estimated costs of staff time to locate information
- Staff time for redaction of information that could allow a person to be identified
- Staff time associated with putting information into the appropriate format
- Printing and copying costs (printing costs include printing for redaction purposes)
We calculated our charges on the following basis:
- a) Staff time is charged at cost per hour
- b) Printing/copying costs @10p/sheet
Staff time taken to determine whether we hold the information requested, or the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released will not be charged for.
There is no upper limit to the cost that may be applied, but if the cost is estimated to exceed £600 then we may view the request as unreasonable and will seek either, to reduce the volume of information requested, or apply the exception Regulation 10 (4) (b) of the EIRS.
For the reasons set out above, in particular that we need to be certain that we will collect the funding before committing resource to answering requests, we require advance payment before making the information available. An invoice detailing estimated costs will be issued to facilitate payment.