Comments on: International man/woman of mystery: the silent, uncommunicative type, apparently

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:12:05 +0000

It certainly is shocking. Further, it makes Ordnance Survey (and the UK by association) even more of a laughing stock in the international GI community than it already is.

By: steven feldman

steven feldman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:22:33 +0000

Hardly silent and uncommunicative if the review and comment took place in a telephone conversation?

An “oral engagement” sounds like a euphemism, not sure for what though?

By: Ed Parsons

Ed Parsons — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:38:31 +0000

Brings a whole new meaning to ‘Phone a friend”. Lets hope the call was not to the speaking clock :-)

By: WIlliam Allbrook

WIlliam Allbrook — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:02:20 +0000

As the person who originally requested to know the identity of this ‘internationally recognised expert’ I too am shocked. This person was obviously onside and his or her opinion used to dupe ministers whilst the Cambridge Study(which few can understand!) – ‘Models of Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds’ has been totally ignored. The OS should be ashamed and so should the minister. Next government please take note.

So what do we know? OS licensing will be simplified (good), OS will continue to aggressively defend its monopoly and Crown Copyright including the absurd iniquity of ‘derived data’ (bad). Set up a wholly owned subsidiary company – ‘an innovative trading entity’ presumably to promulgate its monopoly even further (still to be ascertained).

By: Kevin Jump

Kevin Jump — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:15:07 +0000

I would like to say this shocks me, but it doesn’t this appears to be how government is currently functioning for the productions of papers and reports,

on an unrelated issue there are currently loads of FOI requests flying around the governments review into Elective home Eduction that are finding similar flimsy evidence and hearsay being presented at fact to the government and the public.

Maybe the next step is to ask for a comparison of the report before the IM/WOM cast their eye over it, and a version that was produced subsequently? presumably if no notes where made there can’t have been many changes?