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Report 24 - Access to Information Review Task Force
AN ANALYSIS OF FEES FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION REQUESTS
2.5 Options for changeThese options were examined at the suggestion of the Task Force.
- The application fee constitutes the total fee for most requests.
Given the poor tracking of search or preparation time for a significant proportion of requests, it is difficult to accurately compare fees that are payable under the current fee structure with any proposal for other methods of calculating fees. On the basis of the data used for this analysis, a base of five hours of search and preparation and 100 pages of reproduction would cover more than 80% of all requests.
- A separate fee structure is applied to business requests.
We can examine the 6,220 business requests from our sample in order to estimate the effect of a separate fee structure for business requests (assuming the definition of a business request was the same as it is now, and that the definition is consistently and accurately applied).
According to the data available on the 6,220 business requests in the sample:
| Table 2b: Total Fees Payable Under Current Costing - Business | ||||
Fee |
Number |
Percentage |
Total Fees |
Percent of Total Fees |
$5 |
1180 |
19.0% |
$5,900 |
4.6% |
$5 to $25 |
4,016 |
64.6% |
$38,536 |
29.9% |
$26 to $60 |
711 |
11.4% |
$26,666 |
20.7% |
$61 to $100 |
163 |
2.6% |
$12,324 |
9.6% |
$101 to $150 |
66 |
1.1% |
$7,877 |
6.1% |
$151 to $200 |
30 |
0.5% |
$5,131 |
4.0% |
$201 to $350 |
29 |
0.5% |
$7,133 |
5.5% |
$351 to $500 |
11 |
0.2% |
$4,594 |
3.6% |
$501 to $1250 |
11 |
0.2% |
$7,741 |
6.0% |
$1,251 or more |
3 |
0.0% |
$12,822 |
10.0% |
Total |
6,220 |
100.0% |
$128,724 |
100.0% |
- However, since we know that this data is incomplete, if we substitute
a standard of 2 minutes search time for each page reviewed, 2 minutes
preparation time for each page released, assume the first 5 hours were
free, and the charge was $10 per hour after that, we get a somewhat
different result:
| Table 2c: Total Fees Payable Assuming Hours For Search and Prep Time Under Current Costing and Data –Business* | ||||
Fee |
Number |
Percentage |
Total Fees |
Percent of Total Fees |
$5 |
740 |
11.9% |
$3,700 |
0.9% |
$5 to $25 |
3,086 |
49.6% |
$38,888 |
9.2% |
$26 to $60 |
771 |
12.4% |
$32,528 |
7.7% |
$61 to $100 |
598 |
9.6% |
$46,900 |
11.1% |
$101 to $150 |
393 |
6.3% |
$48,077 |
11.4% |
$151 to $200 |
191 |
3.1% |
$32,893 |
7.8% |
$201 to $350 |
259 |
4.2% |
$66,790 |
15.9% |
$351 to $500 |
78 |
1.3% |
$32,820 |
7.8% |
$501 to $1250 |
81 |
1.3% |
$58,799 |
14.0% |
$1,251 or more |
23 |
0.4% |
$59,961 |
14.2% |
Total |
6,220 |
100.0% |
$421,355 |
100.0% |
- If we use the same time standards, but remove the 5 free hours of
time, add 2 minutes review time for each page released and calculate
fees at an hourly rate of $20, we get:
| Table 2: Total Fees Payable under proposed fee schedule - Business | ||||
Fee |
Number |
Percentage |
Total Fees |
Percent of Total Fees |
$5 |
740 |
11.9% |
$3,700 |
0.3% |
$5 to $25 |
1,102 |
17.7% |
$20,339 |
1.6% |
$26 to $60 |
1,906 |
30.6% |
$60,061 |
4.8% |
$61 to $100 |
323 |
5.2% |
$25,636 |
2.1% |
$101 to $150 |
392 |
6.3% |
$48,620 |
3.9% |
$151 to $200 |
285 |
4.6% |
$49,338 |
4.0% |
$201 to $350 |
623 |
10.0% |
$164,164 |
13.2% |
$351 to $500 |
307 |
4.9% |
$127,785 |
10.2% |
$501 to $1250 |
393 |
6.3% |
$297,687 |
23.9% |
$1,251 or more |
149 |
2.4% |
$450,306 |
36.1% |
Total |
6,220 |
100.0% |
$1,247,637 |
100.0% |
- Obviously there would be a re-distribution upward of fees payable for business requests under this scheme, however 60% of business requests would still have payable fees of $100 or less, and 85% of business requests would have payable fees of $350 or less. It is not possible to forecast the impact of fee waivers on the actual amounts collected.
- For 26% of requests the only fee payable under the current fee structure
is the $5 application fee (which must always be collected), while for
85% of requests less than $25 is payable, and the fee has been waived
in accordance with the current TBS guidelines.
- A significant amount of fees payable beyond the application fee are
neither waived nor collected ($25K). This figure would likely be much
higher if good data was being kept on the amount of chargeable time
spent on searching or preparing records.
- The distribution of requests is a very high volume of smaller requests
(less than 100 pages either reviewed or released) counterbalanced by
a very low volume of very large requests. This disparity in distribution
drastically reduces the utility of calculated averages as a means of
assessing the fee schedule.
- There is a high correlation between the number of pages reviewed
and the number of pages released (83% of cases resulted in release of
more than 90% of pages reviewed).
- There is no apparent correlation between the size of a request (number
of pages reviewed or released) and the likelihood that fees will be
waived.
- In more than 80% of cases there are less than 100 pages reviewed
and less than 100 pages released.
- More than 80% of the requests studied recorded less than five hours
of search and preparation time and less than 100 pages of reproduction.
- In more than 90% of cases for each category of requester, there is
less than five hours of search time recorded and no additional fees
are charged over the mandatory application fee.
- A fee structure for business requests which charged for all search and preparation time and for review time at a rate of $20 per hour would result in increased fees for all business requests, with the largest impact on the top ten percent of requesters, whose average fees would increase from $495 to $1,380.
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