Plymouth City Council has been told it is unreasonable to charge people for information about the Armada Way upgrade if it takes more than 15 minutes of work to supply it. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has even gone further and told the authority it shouldn’t be charging at all and ought to put all the info on its website so people don’t even have to ask for it.
The ICO has written to the council after receiving a complaint from action group Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw), which was unhappy after being asked to pay £68 for a map, and hearing many other people were being charged for information requests. The IOC said the Armada Way scheme, which led to 110 trees being felled in March, is of such wide public interest it is not reasonable to charge for supplying information.
The council said it received nearly 1,000 Freedom of Information (FoI) and Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) requests about the £12.7m Armada Way redevelopment plans. It said a complaint was made to the ICO after it charged £68 for a map, and was told this was too high, but stressed it had not been reprimanded.
The ICO letter to the council, seen by PlymouthLive, nonetheless sets out the office’s thoughts on charging for EIR requests. The council’s website said it will charge “the standard fee rate for the estimated time to completion of the request after an initial quarter of an hour of staff time has been provided”.
But the ICO wrote: “I do not think that this is a reasonable approach to handling EIR requests given that fees should not deter requestors… a blanket fee of this nature, after only 15 minutes work, would be very unlikely to be considered reasonable.”
It said the FoI Act said at least 18 hours of work had to be carried out, free, before a fee could be applied. The ICO said: “Please can I ask you to reconsider the council’s schedule of charges in this respect.”
The ICO also stressed fees should not deter people from requesting environmental information, and even the council’s published schedule of charges may be a deterrent. It said: “It is vital that everyone has access to environmental information and has the same opportunities to contribute to public debate.”
The letter also reminded the council that any charge must not exceed the actual cost of making the information available. But the IOC’s main concern was that the council was “seeking to apply a charge to information which addresses important issues in relation to the local environment in Plymouth”.
It wrote: “There is a strong public interest in the council being open about its plans and addressing the public’s concerns about its intentions as regards the city centre and the trees within it.”
It continued: “The requested information relates to a significant plan to redevelop parts of the city centre, which will result in a large number of trees being cut down and the landscape changed significantly. Many individuals have expressed their concerns about the intention to fell so many trees, and the plans are also likely to have a significant effect on the local environment.”
The ICO concluded that there is a strong public interest in the information being disclosed, and therefore didn’t consider applying a fee was reasonable. It said that with so many people wanting details it should ensure as much information as possible is available, free, from the council’s website.
The IOC said: “Our preliminary view is therefore that it is not reasonable for the council to charge for this information as it relates to an issue which will have a significant impact on the local environment and people living within the area.”
Straw said the information about the Armada Way redevelopment should be publicly available. A spokesperson said its lawyer submitted a complaint to the IOC after a number of requests were refused unless the requester paid.
Straw said: “Requests which would take longer to fulfil than 15 minutes – which was basically all of them – would be charged at a rate of £25 an hour.
“Obviously, we understand the council’s staff time is not unlimited, but their policies must be reasonable and the ability of people to request information from public bodies is so important. All requests made were made independently by individuals genuinely in search of information. It was not a coordinated campaign to flood the council with requests by Straw supporters.”
A Plymouth City Council spokesperson stressed the authority had not received a reprimand from the (ICO), which could only happen after an investigation. The spokesperson explained: “We received nearly 1,000 FoI and EIR inquiries regarding Armada Way. One of the requests was for an up-to-date map of Armada Way, showing highways land, and information regarding the terms and conditions of the Government’s Transforming Cities Fund grant.
“At the time of the request, we did not readily hold all of this information. Therefore, in line with the legislation around EIR requests, we calculated the amount of time it would take to prepare and provide what was needed and the associated costs.
“It was considered that this piece of work would have taken three hours. This exceeded the amount of time considered ‘reasonable’ and therefore we asked the requester to contribute £68 to go towards preparing the work.
“The requester did not agree with this charge and therefore complained to the Information Commissioner. The ICO did not issue a formal reprimand, but considered the £68 too high a charge in this instance. They requested the council revisit the costs. We did and provided the information to the requester free of charge.”
