Introduction / What is
meant by re-use? / Scope of the Regulations in
relation to the City of London / What are the
basics of the Regulations? / Copyright /
Exemptions to re-use /
Licenses and conditions for re-use /
Charging / Information Asset
List / Who to Contact? /
Complaints
Introduction
The Government has passed a law governing the re-use of public
sector information (Statutory Instrument 2005 No 1515, The Re-use
of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005), here referred to as
‘the Regulations’. The Regulations came into effect on 1 July 2005.
They encourage the re-use of public sector information - that is,
information for which the public authorities listed in the
Regulations hold the copyright.
We explain here how the Regulations relate to the City of
London, and how they relate to you when you request re-use of
information for which we hold the copyright.
The Regulations take their lead from EU Directive 2003 / 98 / EC
on the Re-use of Public Sector Information, which also came into
force on the 1 July 2005.
What is meant by
re-use?
When we release information to you which has been requested under
access to information legislation such as the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA), you may ask if you can re-use the
information, perhaps for commercial purposes, in a way which,
without permission, might breach our copyright. It is this sort of
situation with which the Regulations are concerned.
Nothing in the Regulations affects rights of access under other
legislation, such as rights of access available under the FOIA.
Scope of the Regulations
in relation to the City of London
The Regulations only apply to the City of London as a Local
Authority (including Local Education Authority) and
Police Authority.
In addition, certain bodies with which the City of London is
normally associated are not covered by the Regulations, namely: the
City of London Police; the Museum of London; the Sir John Cass’s
Foundation Primary School; the Guildhall Library, Archives and Art
Gallery; and the Barbican Centre.
What are the basics of
the Regulations?
We are not actually obliged under the Regulations to make public
sector information available for re-use, but, if we do allow re-use
of any of our public sector information, this has to be done in
accordance with the Regulations. In these circumstances the
Regulations add obligations:
- A 20 working day time-frame (beginning from the first working
day after the request is received) for a response to a request for
re-use. This period may be extended where the request is extensive
or complex.
- A licence fee can be issued if we do not wish re-use to be
free.
- A licence must not restrict competition.
- Exclusive licensing arrangements will not be allowed except for
the provision of a service in the public interest. Such
arrangements shall be published.
- We should make available to the public our conditions for
re-use and any standard charges for re-use.
- Information for re-use should be made available electronically
where possible and appropriate.
- We must not discriminate between applicants making requests for
re-use for comparable purposes.
Copyright
The Regulations do not affect our copyright.
The supply of documents to you by us (for example under the
FOIA) does not give you a right to re-use them in a way that would
infringe that copyright, for example, by making copies, publishing
and issuing copies to the public or to any other person. Brief
extracts of any of the material may be reproduced without our
permission, under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes
of research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism,
review and news reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of
ourselves as the copyright owner. But wider re-use requires our
permission.
We may choose to allow re-use under licence, imposing conditions
on the re-use of the information to ensure it is not used in a
manner inconsistent with our copyright; and we may also decide to
charge a re-use fee.
Exemptions to
re-use
Once we have agreed to make types of
information available for re-use, thereafter the basis for refusing
to provide any of the specific information of that type will be
limited. Re-use can be refused if:
- The activity of supplying the document is one which falls
outside its public task.
- The document contains content in which relevant intellectual
property rights are owned by a third party.
- The content of the document is exempt from access by virtue of
the FOIA.
Licenses and
conditions for re-use
If you ask if you can re-use information for which we hold the
copyright, and we agree in principle to the request, we would
communicate to you the conditions for re-use and other licence
terms. We issue licenses, which include the conditions for re-use,
on a case by case basis.
Charging
The Regulations state that when allowing re-use public authorities
can make a ‘reasonable return on investment'.
In calculating a licence fee we would take into account the
following:
- The City of London's intellectual property, ie information that
has a commercial value
A charge for this would be determined on a case by case
basis.
Hourly charges in respect of the staff time in making the
requested information available to the applicant for re-use will be
charged in accordance with one of the following rates (these may be
subject to revision from time to time) depending on the seniority
of the member of staff who is required to manage the request:
£36 per hour, £61 per hour, £102 per hour, or £223 per hour.
- Charges for materials:
- Copying or Printing out (black & white)
- A4 sheet 50p
- A3 sheet 70p
- A2 sheet £2
- A1 sheet £3
- AO sheet £6
- B1 sheet £5
- Copying or Printing out (colour)
- A4 70p
- A3 £1.40
- A2 £20
- A1 £40
- A0 £80
- B1 £58 from disk (scanning may be more)
- CDs (if the information is already held electronically): 15p
per CD
- Microfiche / Microfilm: 15p per frame
- Converting to electronic format: Depends on costs charged to
the City of London
- Converting to microfiche or microfilm: Depends on costs charged
to the City of London
Information Asset
List
Where permission for re-use is granted, we will
list in a link to this section the type of information for which
permission for re-use has been granted. The list is known as an
‘information asset list’. You may also like to visit
the City of London’s Publication Scheme.
Who to
Contact?
If you would like to apply to re-use information for which we hold
the copyright, you are required to:
- Make your request in writing
- State your name
- Give an address for correspondence
- Specify the document requested · State the purpose for which
the document is to be re-used
Please send your request to:
- Information Officer
Town Clerk’s Department
City of London
PO Box 270
Guildhall
London
EC2P 2EJ
- or
email
Complaints
You may complain to us about how we have managed your request for
re-use, eg you may wish to complain about any licence fee for
re-use which we decide to charge.
The complaints procedure set up by the Regulations works in the
same way as the complaints procedure under the FOIA, except that
the Office for Public Sector Information
(OPSI), and
not the Information Commissioner, is the ultimate
authority to which to complain. You can complain to OPSI only after
your complaint has first been sent to us (as the authority to which
your request for re-use of information was made) and you are not
satisfied with our response to your complaint.
Please see the City of London’s FOI complaints
procedure.
Download the FOI complaints
procedure (29.9kb)
Any complaint to OPSI must:
- Be in writing.
- State the nature of the complaint.
- Include a copy of the written notification from us constituting
our response to your complaint.
- Be lodged with OPSI before the end of 28 working days beginning
with the date of receipt by you of our response.
The contact details for OPSI are:
OPSI
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU
Tel: 020 8876 3444
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