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Hi, I'm surprised by the number that don't charge for 'non commercial' work. In other fields there is not this split for example most local record offices I've dealt with for any search requests for genealogical information charge a fee even if it is for personal use. cheers Simon Walton >>> Nick Boldrini <[log in to unmask]> 21/04/2009 12:15 >>> Hi Hugh and others to be clear we are not charging for information, but staff time to deal with the inquiry. The information may originally come form contractors, but it rarely arrives here in a format that makes it easy to index in the digital HER, and its perhaps arguable that HER costs reflect those costs as well as the pure search time (ie overheads of IT, software licences, compilation and maintenance of the HER etc) as well as admin time for generating the invoice etc, and the one costs of my post. I must admit to being quite surprised by this thread by a) the number of HER's who don't charge at all - all the HER's I have worked at have charged and I thought nowadays it would be hard to avoid b) the number who charge less for the second increment of time - I don't get that at all, the cost per hour is gonna be the same surely - unless you change staff member half way through? ; ) c) the number of people who do scanning/photocopying for people - we tell people they can do it here if they like, but we don't go through the paper files for them seems their quite a variety of service provision out there best wishes Nick Boldrini Historic Environment Record Officer Heritage and Environment Section Development and Countryside Service Business and Environmental Services Directorate North Yorkshire County Council County Hall Northallerton DL7 8AH Direct Dial (01609) 532331 Nick Boldrini covers archaeological development control work for Selby District ONLY. For all other districts archaeological development control, contact Lucie Hawkins Direct Dial: 01609 532316 [log in to unmask] Conserving North Yorkshire's heritage - encouraging sustainable access www.northyorks.gov.uk/her >>> From: "Winfield, Hugh" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Date: 21/04/2009 11:54 Subject: Re: Charging for HER searches Hi All, We don't charge here in NELC; the main reason is that I am directly employed by the planning service who until recently were extremely wary of charges other than the planning fee itself as it was seen as a double charge (if that makes sense). The second reason that I don't charge is that a large proportion of the useful data in the SMR/HER is now data that has come directly from PPG16 work, so in many cases companies would end up paying for information that they themselves created in the first place, which seems ludicrous to me. Most enquiries are in relation to work that will in the end provide data to enhance the SMR/HER so I see it as a fair exchange. As the digital SMR/HER is only four years old I have been able to custom build it with commercial enquiries in mind, therefore commercial enquiries generally do not need any filtering so they take very little time (the small size of NELC helps there :) ); I find that enquiries by students and other academic researches take much more time to process as they generally want much more specific data covering a larger area. I do charge for photocopying though. Hugh Hugh Winfield Archaeologist Access your county council services online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at www.northyorks.gov.uk. WARNING Any opinions or statements expressed in this e-mail are those of the individual and not necessarily those of North Yorkshire County Council. This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this in error, please do not disclose any information to anyone, notify the sender at the above address and then destroy all copies. North Yorkshire County Council*s computer systems and communications may be monitored to ensure effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes. Although we have endeavoured to ensure that this e-mail and any attachments are free from any virus we would advise you to take any necessary steps to ensure that they are actually virus free. If you receive an *out of office* notice from the person you are contacting and you wish to request information under either the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act or the Environmental Information Regulations please forward your request by e-mail to the Data Management Team ([log in to unmask]) who will process your request. North Yorkshire County Council.