Re-use of public sector information policy

4.1    The Re-use of Public Sector Information (RPSI) Regulations 2015 creates a legal obligation for central and local government, and certain proscribed public bodies in section 3 of the referenced legislation to publish a list of information relating to the Council’s public tasks and consider requests from the public to re-use information held. This allows members of the public to repurpose information held by the Council for their own personal or commercial purposes. 

4.2    The Council has an obligation to provide a response confirming whether the received request has been approved or denied within 20 working days. If refused, the reason will be specified and if the copyright is owned by a third party, the Council will provide the details of the owner where possible.

4.3    The Council may charge a marginal fee when granting an RPSI request under section 15 of the RPSI Regulation 2015. 

4.4    The Council may apply conditions when granting an RPSI request under section 12 of the RPSI Regulation 2015. These conditions will be as non-restrictive as possible and they will never be applied to restrict competition. A condition, for example, may be to require a requester to reference Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council as the original source of the information and/or confirming whether the information has been modified. 

4.5    To make a re-use request, the freedom@welhat.gov.uk inbox should be contacted with a description of the information being requested for re-use and what it will be used for. If this information is not publicly available already and has not previously been released as part of a Freedom of Information or Environmental Information request, it will be processed as an information request. A response will be provided outlining the Council’s position in relation to the information request and the re-use request. For further information on information request handling, please review the Council’s Information Request Policy.

4.6    All RPSI requests will be recorded in the Council’s RPSI Register. No personal information will be contained in this register and therefore it will not be subject to a retention schedule. 

4.7    All related correspondence will be saved in a case file. This information will be kept for upwards of 2 years after a request has been fulfilled.