APPSI comes out in favour of Ordnance Survey on addressing – but it’s two-edged
Deep waters here: this is a case where what goes on in public is more subtle than at first appears. Read on, and you’ll find – we think – that the government is being forced to define precisely where the Ordnance Survey’s “national obligation” ends and its “commercial” (that is, optional, non-core) activities begin…
Today in The Guardian we report on how the Advisory Panel for Public Sector Information has determined in favour of Ordnance Survey in the row between OS and Intelligent Addressing, which runs the National Land and Property Gazeteer (NLPG).
The APPSI said that it couldn’t really rule on the matter – which drew what could be seen as an affronted response from the Office of Public Sector Information, which said that APPSI was making a “literal interpretation” of the rules governing PSI.
As the article explains,
Intelligent Addressing, which operates a gazetteer compiled and run by local councils, complained in February 2006 about the way Ordnance Survey licenses its address database, called AddressPoint.
Intelligent Addressing complained to OPSI, formerly Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, which oversees two compliance mechanisms: the public sector information regulations and a “fair trader” scheme. In July, OPSI’s report backed some of the firm’s complaints. Both sides then asked the APPSI, an expert group responsible to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, to review the findings.
In a 17-page report published on Monday, the advisory panel says that Ordnance Survey’s AddressPoint product is not part of the mapping agency’s “public task”. As such, it cannot breach regulations covering the supply of public sector information. The APPSI recommends that the company take any further complaints to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
Here’s the interesting point. If AddressPoint isn’t something that OS needs to do (because it’s not “public task”), then that must be something that lies on the commercial, not PSI, side of its operations. In which case there must be other data that needs to be defined as being the public task.
But equally, one would expect that like the Met Office, which has to charge itself fairly for the data it collects and then resells, this will prevent the OS cross-subsidising itself. In effect, it would strip back what the OS does to a “public task” bone.
Richard Susskind, the head of APPSI, may have made a clever move by palming this off. It in effect forces OPSI to determine what OS’s public task is, and what the limits of PSI are.
We’ll watch with interest.
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Advisory Panel on PSI notes Free Our Data campaign again (15 January 2007; score: 32.18%)
- APPSI to examine free data model, it says (11 June 2008; score: 31.58%)
- Time for local government to think harder about opening its data (30 September 2009; score: 27.77%)
- Do ministers listen to advisory panels? The one on public sector information (PSI) isn't so sure (8 February 2007; score: 27.35%)
- Postcodes: local authorities vs Royal Mail still arguing; want to sign a petition? (24 May 2007; score: 24.81%)
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I actually think that we are re-visiting the issue of refined and unrefined data, even more than the issue of what is or isn’t Ordnance Survey’s ‘public task.’ We need to remember that all Intelligent Addressing wanted Address Point for was the x,y mapping coordinates. The creation of these x,y coordinates is basic mapping and is indeed OS’s public task. Intelligent Addressing wanted nothing more. However, Ordnance Survey refused to license this very basic dataset. It was take Address Point which included obsolete addressing data which Intelligent Addressing most definitely didn’t need (IA’s National Land and Property Gazetteer is the definitive dataset for addressing) and Royal Mail’s postal address file which it also didn’t need. It is obvious that Address Point as it stands is a commercially derived product.
Again, OS has the definitive commercial advantage because it has the very basic mapping data of x,y coordinates. In support of this campaign, I say provide the mapping coordinates at no cost to the private sector and allow the private sector to develop the best commercial product. If OS wants to flog Address Point and/or Master Map Address Layer in competition with the National Land and Property Gazetteer, let it do so. But we absolutely must start from a level playing field. To my mind, this is what this campaign is all about.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:22 am
“But we absolutely must start from a level playing field. To my mind, this is what this campaign is all about.”
Thanks Leslie, I think that sums it up rather well.
A quick footnote to my story this week. After it went to press on Tuesday I received a note from OPSI’s head Carol Tullo, in which she wanted to stress that “OPSI will work with APPSI and the other interested parties to reach practical solutions. As part of this process and in the light of the complaints handling to date we may revisit our guidance.”
I understand that more details will emerge when the government publishes its response to the OFT market study. It’s now with ministers, apparently.
May 8th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
You make some very good points there Leslie.
I would like to add that while Addresspoint did originall add x,y coordinates to addresses in the NLPG most LAs have spent a great deal of time making the spatial side of the NLPG fit for purpose. Addresspoint could at best be described as spatially 80% accurate when used to create the NLPG, and within the gazetteer I maintain every single x,y coorindate has been modified. Partly due to inaccuracies, and partly due to PAI. Our gazetteer has also grown by at least 30% in this time and these additions have been added by geo-referencing developers plans, nothing to do with OS’s value added products.
It is also important to note that most of the NLPG was created from LA’s own datasets such as Council Tax, Planning, and Electoral Role data (much of which was spatially referenced to start with), so the actual percentage of truely derrived OS data in the NLPG was small at creation, and is diminishing at a great speed. In this light it would be interesting to see how much of the orignal cut of addresspoint is still within the NLPG, and if this data must be the subject of a commercial license then surely it should reflect the actual content of OS derived data still within the NLPG.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I am interested in what will happen to the text identifying properties and streets within the mastermap and landline layers, the base information from which all other OS products are soon to be derived. These dont have all the properties marked, but they do have enough to find out where addresses are, so in other words, OS are collating and displaying this information on a map. Are they looking to try and hide where this information comes from, as without it, most of their mapping will be just lines on a page? If this isnt the public side, where does this come from?
December 14th, 2007 at 7:07 am
…though of course it only needs the right signatures. Get Gordon Brown and Elizabeth Windsor to sign something, and it’s done and dusted!