London: 22 January 2009

The Department of Communities and Local Government published the titled: Good practice and guidance, Reports and summaries. ISBN 9781409810346

Summary

“This guidance sets out a methodology for local authorities to charge for access to property search records. In setting costs for property search services, authorities must comply with the Local Authorities (Charges for Property Searches) Regulations 2008 which should be read in conjunction with this document.

The guidance establishes a framework setting out what a local authority can charge for and what it cannot. Using that framework it provides definitions of the type and maturity of data to which the guidance applies. The costing principles on which it is based are consistent with existing local authority accounting arrangements eg BVACo”

Contents

Section 1 Introduction1.1 Structure of guidance

Section 2 Defining property search related data 2.1 Pre-unrefined data 2.2 Unrefined data2.3 Refined data (including ‘compiled data’)

Section 3 The Charging Model and the Local Authorities (Charges for Property Searches) Regulations 2008 3.1 Key principles of the model3.2 Practical data examples

Section 4 Costing and charging methodology for unrefined data 4.1 Costing & Charging principles 4.2 Step 1 – Identification staff time/costs Step 2 – Allocation of staff and other costs and activities 4.3 Step 2.1 – Capturing the net costs of updating and maintaining the Con29 data 4.4 Step 2.2 – Capturing the costs of making the Con29 data available to third parties 4.5 Step 2.3 – Calculating the total costs by activity 4.6 Step 3 – Converting the costs into a charge4.7 Practical application of the methodology

Section 5 Process for securing transparency over the setting of charges

Section 6

Appendix A – The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 Appendix B – Example forms for capturing staff time and cost for property search related activities Example time card Calculating the total staff time and cost against activitiesAppendix C – Worked example

Step 1 – Calculating the staff cost for each activity within a data element Step 2 – Calculating the total costs against the Con29 activitiesStep 3 – Calculating the unit charges