Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 3, Access to Records. Updated 5 May 2023. 73 should promote and encourage applicants to be reasonable and to cooperate with government institutions in defining and clarifying their access requests.120 When it comes to charging fees, government institutions should ensure that: • All applicants are treated the same (fairness). • Fees are calculated the same way for all applicants (consistency). Fairness and consistency are best achieved when the government institution has a written policy or procedure in place for assessing fees and issuing fee estimates. The Commissioner has recommended that government institutions issue fee estimates within the first three to 10 days of an access request being received so there is still time to process the request once a deposit is received.121 Steps When Charging Fees As a best practice, where an estimate of costs will be issued, the FOIP Coordinator should take steps to contact the applicant in an attempt to narrow the scope of the requests to reduce work and costs.122 The following are the steps that can be taken when charging fees: 1. Contact the applicant: a. Advise that fees will be necessary. b. Attempt to clarify or offer ways to narrow the request to reduce or eliminate fees. c. Follow up in writing with the applicant when narrowing occurs to ensure agreed scope is clear. d. Address any requests for a fee waiver accordingly. 2. Make a search strategy (see Search for Records earlier in this Chapter). 3. Prepare a fee estimate based on the search strategy (do not complete the search yet). 4. Decide whether to charge a fee (refer to your internal policy or procedure). 5. Send out fee estimate and suspend work. 120 SK OIPC Review Report 2005-005 at [24]. 121 SK OIPC Review Reports 261-2016 at [21], [71], and 037-2017 at [20]. 122 SK OIPC Review Reports 064-2016 to 076-2016 at [51] and 078-2016 to 091-2016 at [50].
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