European court to hear key case on charging for property search information

The Court of Justice for the European Union will this week (11 December) hear a key case on the scope for local authorities under the Environmental Information Regulations to charge for property search information.

The parties to the case are East Sussex County Council (the appellant), the Information Commissioner (first respondent), Property Search Group (second respondent) and the Local Government Association (third respondent).

In making its reference to the court earlier this year, the Tribunal said: “There is widespread uncertainty about the extent to which local authorities can charge for supplying such information, which has given rise to many disputes between local authorities and applicants for information (in particular so called ‘personal search companies’) and to several cases in the First-tier Tribunal.”

The questions posed by the FTT (Information Rights) for the court are:

• What is the meaning to be attributed to Art 5(2) of Directive 2003/4/EC and in particular can a charge of a reasonable amount for supplying a particular type of environmental information include: (a) part of the cost of maintaining a database used by the public authority to answer requests for information of that type; (b) overhead costs attributable to staff time properly taken into account in fixing the charge?
• Is it consistent with Arts 5(2) and 6 of the Directive for a Member State to provide in its regulations that a public authority may charge an amount for supplying environmental information which does “… not exceed an amount which the public authority is satisfied is a reasonable amount” if the decision of the public authority as to what is a “reasonable amount” is subject to administrative and judicial review as provided under English law?

For the factual background to the case, click here or go to the Panopticon blog run by 11KBW. The reference by the FTT can be viewed here.