Written question asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill (Liberal Democrat), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 November 2006.

Freedom of Information

Question: Whether as part of the review of the operation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 they have made an assessment of the introduction in other countries of provisions in freedom of information fees regulations (a) to include reading time, consideration time and consultation time in the calculation of the appropriate limit above which requests could be refused on cost grounds; and(b) to aggregate requests made by any legal person, or persons apparently acting in cohort, to each public authority for the purposes of calculating the appropriate limit.

Answer: The Frontier Economics review, published by my department last month, looked only at countries where changes have been made to existing freedom of information fees regimes.

Secondary information