§ Mr. Cohenasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his Department's policy towards fees for subject access under the terms of the Data Protection Act; how many register entries his Department has; and what would be the total cost to a data subject seeking access to personal data held under all register entries.
§ Mr. CopeThe Department of Employment group, comprising the Department of Employment, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the Health and Safety Executive, and the Manpower Services Commission has a total of 94 entries on the data protection register. A fee of £10 will be charged for access to information held on most of its register entries, except that free access will be allowed to information held for the following purposes: the national unemployment benefit central computer system; job finding, training and related activities; the Department of Employment small firms service; the administration of the redundancy payments scheme; the380W Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service; industrial tribunals administration; and internal departmental personnel administration.