Power of Information authors rebuff Ordnance Survey over “free maps” article
Today’s Guardian carries a letter from Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, the authors of the Power of Information report, responding to the “response” article in the Guardian last week by Scott Sinclair, head of PR for Ordnance Survey, which was headlined “These maps cost us £110m. We can’t give them away for free.” (We’ve done our own analysis of it.)
The letter is short and worth quoting in full:
Scott Sinclair’s defence against the Guardian’s Free Our Data Campaign (Response, October 4) frames the debate about public-sector information in a wilfully misleading way.
The Ordnance Survey is a public body, and some public bodies do, on the orders of politicians, give things away “for free”. The NHS provides services in the order of £100bn, and does indeed give them away mostly free of charge.
The key issue about charging is whether the UK would benefit more in net terms from the more vibrant information market that more open information would bring than it would lose through having to find an additional £60m per year. This is a serious question that the Treasury is currently looking into, having accepted the recommendation in the independent review we co-authored for the government earlier this year.
As a body committed to the public good, we hope the the board of the Ordnance Survey will soon take up a more constructive approach than this article written on its behalf.
Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo
Authors, Power of Information review
A couple of points to note:
- I didn’t solicit this letter – I wasn’t aware it was going to be published. Which made it a nice breakfast surprise;
- rather than the £110m that OS quotes for its required costs, this suggests £60m as the real “cost” – the extra taxpayer funding that would be needed (£110m to run OS, but a saving of £50m on licences within government);
- they refer to the trading fund review, which we hear is being carried out by Rufus Pollock – but we don’t know what the terms of reference are. If anyone does know, we’d be interested to hear.
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- How long does it take a government to do an economics study? (4 May 2006; score: 26.09%)
- Times article echoes Free Our Data campaign (20 September 2006; score: 22.81%)
- Read all about it: New Yorker article on MapQuest (23 April 2006; score: 22.64%)
- Today in The Guardian: readers respond to the start of the campaign (16 March 2006; score: 22.52%)
- Catching up: government responds to OFT and Power of Information reports (5 July 2007; score: 20.91%)
October 9th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
[...] And that was followed by further response from Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, the authors of the Power of Information, who say: The key issue about charging is whether the UK would benefit more in net terms from the more vibrant information market that more open information would bring than it would lose through having to find an additional £60m per year. This is a serious question that the Treasury is currently looking into, having accepted the recommendation in the independent review we co-authored for the government earlier this year. [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[...] And that was followed by further response from Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, the authors of the Power of Information, who say: The key issue about charging is whether the UK would benefit more in net terms from the more vibrant information market that more open information would bring than it would lose through having to find an additional £60m per year. This is a serious question that the Treasury is currently looking into, having accepted the recommendation in the independent review we co-authored for the government earlier this year. [...]
October 9th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
To add to this… I believe the figure of £50 million received by OS for licences is from central government only. The ‘real’ cost of £60 million would therefore be reduced further when you consider the other public funded bodies that are currently forced to pay for OS data. Aside from this, how much does it cost OS to administer these licenses? Judging by the amount of time spent on developing the Mapping Services Agreement (and the size of the thing!) this figure must be huge!
October 10th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Steve, an interesting comment and not sure one that has been fulled appreciated in this blog as yet? i don’t know as i’m a new follower but if OS data was “paid” centrally by central government in a different way as advocated by the campaign, and that data was made available freely to all those public service people like us local council types, and others then as you state there would be little need for the Mapping Services Agreeement. But this would also mean that those commercial “data providers” that collect and maintain their own geographic data would be “locked” out of providing to us as its highly unlikely we could find funds to buy data that offers similar use from an alternative. But it does mean a lack of choice which is what the Mapping service agreement and such do provide through its tender purpose? I’m not saying this would be wrong it certainly would be different but there are these questions that Treasury will need to consider in their review – surely?
October 10th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Phil, you make a good point. Clearly if the state provided a “free” all-singing/dancing mapping service, you’d have to work hard to persuade council tax payers to stump up for commercial alternatives. (Unless, as the OS tells us is the case in the US, the government’s vanilla mapping service becomes unfit for purpose.) Not at all the sort of outcome for the knowledge economy that we have in mind.
However, I don’t think anyone’s seriously suggesting that the OS trading fund be replaced by a 1940s-style ministry of maps. Rather, I think the future lies in separating upstream and downstream activities, what the OFT’s market study calls unrefined and refined data). Unrefined data, funded by central taxation with quality monitored by independent experts, would be available to all for free. Refined products would be offered by a competitive market; we believe more competitive than today’s.
Obviously, local authorities would need to pay for refined products, but presumably these could be made available through public-sector catalogue arrangements or volume discounts negotiated by someone like the I&DeA.
As you say, these are questions the Treasury’s review will need to consider.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:11 am
reseller marketing…
It can many times become wearisome to set apart the valuable free ebook reading from the bad….
October 18th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I agree Phil, there is a danger of creating a monopoly on GI by giving it away for free. However the data we recieve in the MSA from OS is not really supplied elsewhere anyway. There is no competitor to Mastermap Topography layer (yet!?), and we have no use for Address Layer 2 (because we maintain our own data). I think if OS ceased to be a trading fund they would be free to concentrate on products that wouldn’t necessarily be commercially viable but would be a huge benefit to the public and innovation. I’m not sure (outside of government) that Mastermap is really commercially viable – can any companies actually afford the licesning costs? On the other hand if we weren’t paying our MSA charges we would be free to purchase some (desperatley needed) aerial photography for example!