The money-go-round: how often does the government charge itself for its own data?
An interesting email dropped into the inbox today..
One point which does not seem to have come across in the printed discussion is the question of other Government departments having to pay the OS to use OS data. This might seem bizarre – it is – but that is how things have come about. I was involved in negotiations with a number of Government departments and OS over a Service Level Agreement. Those of us who understood the huge potential benefits of GIS and linking datasets across departments were crying out for OS data but could not afford the fees OS wanted. Very many meetings were held between departments and OS, which resulted in reporting back to our own departments, then instigating discussions with sponsor departments to see if they would fund the use of data. The toing and froing was incredible. What it has cost the taxpayer in staff time far outweighs the income OS (and the Treasury) might receive. SLA’s now exist. Their terms are commercially sensitive. The cost is unbelievable. The whole process bogged down GIS development for 5 years and the enthusiasm of many hard working civil servants was drowned in the process.
(The sender requested anonymity).
This is an interesting point, because it’s clear from the Budget that Labour wants to push off any costs it can out of government – that is, not put any cash into organisations, and indeed to sweat the assets as hard as it can.
But if more than half of the OS’s £100-odd million in “revenues” is actually coming from other parts of government which aren’t “revenue-generating” (Defra? the Environment Agency – it uses OS maps to ilustrate its flood maps) or even private organisations which charge back to government (Capita uses postcodes for the congestion charge and for the TV Licence databases; would the cost of the contract to government be lower if the postcode or OS data were available free?) then something strange is going on.
That is, money is washing around in a sort of slush pile, and you never quite get to see where the music stops. If OS charges Capita for data, and Capita charges the government to run the TV licence, we arguably see no net benefit from charging for the data; it’s just an administrative exercise that makes work for the accounts people and the lawyers at OS.
Sure, Capita adds value to the data; that’s the idea of a private company. (No loans jokes please..) But this circular motion between government departments of money that only exists theoretically seems to me the weakest point of the government’s case for trading funds and charging for data – and remember, it’s that case which we’re trying to demolish.
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- The money-go-round, and the truth about Ordnance Survey funding (6 February 2007; score: 28.94%)
- That's better: see what's been commented on recently (26 March 2006; score: 25.2%)
- Manitoba, home of the free (data) (17 August 2006; score: 21.19%)
- Revealed: how profitable Royal Mail's Postcode Address File (PAF) really is (26 April 2007; score: 20.81%)
- Another day, another budget; but we need monetary arguments (22 March 2006; score: 17.68%)
March 24th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
In any other sector such a financial merrygoround would raise suspicions of creative accounting and money laundering.
May be this is what is going on to disguise the financing of these government-owned quasi-commercial organisations by taxpayers, to avoid this financing appearing is in effect a government subsidy and allow the these organisiations to claim they are financially independant and trading as if they were private sector businesses.
Hmmm…
March 24th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Amongst all the comments posted up on this campaign, I’m not sure that I’ve seen much attention given to exactly what people propose as a realistic and pragmatic alternative. The idea of central government footing the entire bill would certainly stop the money-go-round and encourage innovation and economic growth. But can anyone reassure me that it is sustainable in the longer term? Do we trust our politicians to recognise the importance of the data we all hold so dear and continue to fund these institutions while nurses are being laid off? If the money gets cut, which bit of the country doesn’t get mapped? The one that the “private sector” can most reasonably pay for? Oh dear, aren’t we back where we started?
March 24th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Step2,
The point you raise assumes that up-to-date mapping and geospatial information are a luxury that the UK can do without in times of economic recession. This is (IMCO at least) is very miguided way fo looking at the issue.
Having this kind of data is as necessary as having functioning polica and judicial system, emergency services, health servcie or transport system. Accurate, up to date mapping for a modern nation is indespensible, an investment and economic and social necessesity, not a luxury.
And lets be frank about this…
The annual investment necessary for the OS to map the nation to a high standard is not overly great compared to the annual budgets of other government cost centres. It is at most a few £100M’s pa.
There was a time when the OS was part of the Ministry of Defence and its operations financed out of its enormous annual budget. Something similar should perhaps happen in the future, although perhaps not as part of the MoD. Instead, perhaps the mapping side of OS operations could come under the control of the Department of Environment and the demographic information collection side under the control of the Office for National Statistics/Home Office
March 26th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Step2,
Thank goodness you’ve arrived ! That’s the first sensible remark I have seen in all this hoo-ha, including the readable but regrettably only superficially well-researched and well-informed Guardian articles.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Mike – thanks. I think.
To address Step2’s point, surely the point is that if the government thinks it doesn’t work then it can revert to the trading fund model.
But I’m off now to have a look at the government organisations’ reports, and in particular their costs of sales and marketing.
March 29th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I could have written an email just like that. :-( I’ve been trying for months to license OS data for use on a gov project. The license costs are high and even the cost for obtaining the media (CDs) is a rip off. The concept of government agencies charging each other for data is crazy and counter productive. The only people who win are the OS employees – the people who lose out are the tax payers and the rest of the British public who would be using the application. I’m seriously looking at using Google Maps for this gov project. I love the irony, but it will be a very sad decision.
April 1st, 2006 at 9:15 am
This is just an internal market, as used by most organisations over a certain size. If, say, the DETR wanted to use a meeting room in a DTI office or to use some Environment Agency equipment then surely they’d be expected to pay for it?
August 1st, 2007 at 8:04 am
This has so far caused most problems with map-related data, postcode tables etc, but there are other areas where the current position is against the public.