Freedom of Information requests will be free

Set to come into force on 1 January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act - which gives Joe Public new powers to extract information from government bodies - will now make less of a dent of the average person's pocket.

In draft legislation, the Freedom of Information Act had stipulated that anyone making a request from a public sector body would have to pay 10 per cent of the cost of finding the answer as well as expenses including printing documents, for example.

Constitutional Affairs Secretary Lord Falconer has since said requests will cost nothing in the "vast majority" of cases and confirmed that any request costing under £450 to answer will be free.

Some central government bodies will be able to impose a charge if the cost of digging out the information goes obove about £600 - which the government claims is the equivalent of three and a half days' work.

Announcing the changes, Lord Falconer said: "This government introduced the legislation to change the culture of official information and we believe it should be free. A fees structure which is simple to understand and easy to operate follows the spirit of the legislation."

He added: "We have always maintained that the majority of costs arising from this legislation should be met by the public purse but authorities will have the option either to charge the full cost of the more complicated and time-consuming requests which take longer to research and edit, or to not carry them out on cost grounds."

While cost may no longer be such a burden on the public, the issue of time-keeping has yet to be thoroughly resolved.

When the Act does come into effect, it will mean the public can ask questions of over 100,000 government bodies, including schools, hospitals and civil service departments, and will be legally entitled to receive an answer within 20 working days.

However, the deadline can be extended to 60 days if necessary.

A recent study found that 78 per cent of public sector bodies expect to not be able to fulfil their legal obligations by the 2005 deadline.