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Fees and Charging Policy - amended March 2006

PCC will charge for FOI requests in line with the national FOI fees regulations.

• If the cost to PCC of finding and retrieving the information does not exceed £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work), there will be no charge other than for disbursements (see below)
• If the cost for above exceeds £450, but is no greater than £750 (30 hours) PCC will charge for all the hours at a rate of £25 per hour, up to a maximum charge of £750. However, if the requester wishes, we will assist in refining the request to within 18 hours when no charge will be incurred.
• If the cost exceeds £750, PCC will decline the request. However, we will assist the requester to refine the request and determine what might be achieved within the £750 limit.
• Disbursements (photocopying, copying to different media, postage etc) will be free up to £5. Above this, we will charge the full costs including the initial £5. 
• Where fees are required, we will issue a Fees Notice requesting payment. Following this, the request will not be progressed until the fees have been paid. The time taken to pay the fees does not count as part of the 20 working day target for responding to requests.

  Data Protection Fees

  The fee for making a data subject access request (i.e. requesting to see personal data about yourself) under the Data Protection Act is £10 (or £5 for Portsmouth Leisure Card holders).

  However, this does not apply if personal data is held in an “unstructured” form. In this case the FoI fees regulations apply, above.

  Environmental Information Regulations – Fees

• If the cost to PCC of finding and retrieving the information does not exceed £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work), there will be no charge other than for disbursements (see below)
• If the cost to PCC of finding and retrieving the information exceeds £450 (18 hours work), the hours in excess of 18 will be charged at the rate of £25 per hour. There will also be a charge for disbursements (see below)
• Disbursements (photocopying, copying to different media, postage etc) will be free up to £5. Above this, we will charge the full costs, including the initial £5.
• Where fees are required, we will issue a Fees Notice requesting payment. Following this, the request will not be progressed until the fees have been paid. The time taken to pay the fees does not count as part of the 20 working day target for responding to requests.

  Fees where Other Legislation Applies

  Where existing enactments e.g Town & Country Planning Act, apply to an information access request, their own charging regulation will apply.

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