Another day, another budget; but we need monetary arguments
I spent a long train journey last night reading an enormous email conversation about 2002’s withdrawal by the Ordnance Survey of the Panorama product (which provided comparatively cheap – though not free – data on height).
It was clear that the reason why the OS was withdrawing the product was simple: it competed with the higher-quality and more expensive products that it had generated more recently itself. Trouble was, people were still plumping for the cheap Panorama one.
So the arguments that were being made to the OS – that it ought to make the data available, that others would host the data for free if the OS would only release it to the public domain – clearly weren’t going to work.
What we have to recognise in this campaign is that it will not be won by appealing to the better nature of the OS or the Treasury. They don’t have one.
The only argument that wins is the economic one: that the Treasury (in particular) will receive more money through the data being free than by it being charged for. That means you have to demonstrate that there will be enough mapping companies, and that they’ll be big enough, that their tax revenues will exceed £105 million (the OS’s revenues, I think, in the past year).
OBviously here the Peter Weiss paper is the best illustration, but it’s only an illustration – at present. We need better illustrations tailored to the UK.
I’m considering the way forward at present. One tactic that seemed logical is to do an FOI request to each of the “target” organisations asking what data they charge for, and how much they charge, and how much revenue they get from them.
Other thoughts?
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Ignore the Budget - get the trading funds report (12 March 2008; score: 24.18%)
- Trading Funds report will be released with the budget... and... (11 March 2008; score: 23.49%)
- Why privatising Ordnance Survey (and other trading funds) would be the worst possible outcome (updated) (23 November 2008; score: 23.3%)
- Advisory Panel on PSI notes Free Our Data campaign again (15 January 2007; score: 21.09%)
- In the Guardian: Ordnance Survey's future awaits budget; Peoples' Map launches (2 April 2009; score: 19.42%)
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Given that so much of the income from PSI is from within government – one department paying another (as pointed out in the description of ordnance survey/post office data being paid for 8 times over in local government applications) a simple request for revenue for the target organisations is likely to give inflated results. Could the FOI request ask for composition of the revenue, so that the relative proportion of interdepartmental transfers could be accounted for and a true net income to government arrived at?
March 25th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Re: economic of trading fund model vs free usage model
What you need to do it get some economists in academia familaiar with national finances to investigate the current model and free usage model and undertake a thorough analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of both, together wth modelling of the potential tax revenue generated by free availability of state information holdings. One the ecomic justification of what is being proposed has been established (or not) this can be presented to government as evidence that the current system is not as profitable as the free avialability model.