Section 12 — Freedom of Information Act 2000: Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit. 12 1 Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

2 Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.

3 In subsections (1) and (2) “ the appropriate limit ” means such amount as may be prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation to different cases.

4 The Minister for the Cabinet Office may by regulations provide that, in such circumstances as may be prescribed, where two or more requests for information are made to a public authority—

a by one person, or b by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign, the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.

5 The Minister for the Cabinet Office may by regulations make provision for the purposes of this section as to the costs to be estimated and as to the manner in which they are to be estimated.