Inspection and supply of documents
21.—(1) Any document required by any provision of these Regulations to be open to inspection by members of the public must be available for inspection—
(a)at all reasonable hours at the offices of the relevant local authority;
(b)on the relevant local authority’s website, if it has one; and
(c)in the case of documents to be available for inspection pursuant to regulation 15, on payment of a reasonable fee required by the relevant local authority by the person seeking to inspect the documents at the offices of the relevant local authority.
(2) Subject to paragraph (4), where a document is to be available for inspection by a person under any provision in these Regulations, the person may—
(a)make a copy of the whole or part of the document; or
(b)require the person having custody of the document to supply the person requiring inspection a copy of the whole or part of the document,
on payment by the person requiring the copy to the relevant local authority of postage, copying or other necessary charge for transmission.
(3) Subject to paragraph (4), any member of the public may, in any publicly available medium, reproduce, or provide commentary in relation to, any document supplied to that person or made available for inspection by members of the public under these Regulations.
(4) Paragraphs (2) and (3) do not require or authorise the doing of any act which infringes the copyright in any work except that, where the owner of the copyright is the relevant local authority, nothing done pursuant to that paragraph constitutes an infringement of the copyright.
(5) Where any document required by these Regulations to be open to inspection by the public—
(a)is supplied to or available for inspection by members of the public; or
(b)is supplied for the benefit of any newspaper in pursuance of regulation 7(7) or 14(2),
the publication thereby of any defamatory matter contained in the document is privileged unless the publication is proved to be with malice.
(6) Any written record of an executive decision or any report required by regulation 14 to be available for inspection by members of the public, must be retained by the relevant local authority and made available for inspection by the public for a period of at least six years beginning on the date on which the decision, to which the report or record relates, was made.
(7) Any background papers required by regulation 15 to be available for inspection by members of the public must be retained by the relevant local authority and be available for inspection by the public for a period of at least four years beginning on the date on which the decision, to which the background papers relate, was made.
(8) The rights conferred on any person by these Regulations to inspect, copy or be supplied with documents are in addition to any such rights that person may have apart from those under these Regulations.