Why are there special rules for bodies that are Trading Funds?
A. Trading Funds are required to charge for their services in order to support themselves and not be a drain on public funds. If they were unable to charge for information services that have a potential commercial value, they would either need additional public funding (which would increase costs for the general taxpayer) or they would only be able to produce less information or produce information of a poorer quality (leading to lower quality information being available for re-use). Through the charging for information both the general taxpayer and the potential re-user gain and a proportion of costs more properly falls on those who stand to benefit from the information (the user-pays principle).
