Changes to UK Met Office Charging Policy

As part of a recent restructuring in the UK Met Office a Customer Centre was created for the purpose of dealing with external clients. While the concept of having a single point of contact for external clients is a good one the charging policy which has been adopted appears to be an abuse of its dominant position in the market.

For all transactions there is now apparently a minimum handling charge of 250 pounds sterling. While this may not be significant if the overall cost of a purchase runs to several thousands of pounds it is excessive for small purchases. For example, if the requirement is for a copy of one archived weather forecast script, which would take only a few minutes to extract, the price will now apparently be a minimum of 250 pounds sterling.