Outrageous. Incredible. International expert was spoken word only even within OS
Let’s just remind ourselves what it was that Sir Rob Margetts, chair of Ordnance Survey, said at the launch of OS’s proposed new strategy (which is now in little pieces all over the floor since Gordon Brown and Tim Berners-Lee announced the end of derived data and the freeing up of mid-scale mapping, but anyway) back in April:
“We came to conclusion that the cost to government in the first five years [of a free data model] would be between £500m and £1 billion. That wasn’t the only reason that we discarded it. We did, with outside help, a review of equivalent organisations around the world.“
Who, I then asked, was the “outside help”? OS responded:
With regard to the International Comparison of Geographical Information Trading Models Study, outside help was provided by senior officials of those Institutions contacted.
In the case of the United States of America, as senior officials of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) were unavailable, Mr. David Cowen, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina, kindly provided us with an in-depth overview of the state of public sector GI data in the United States, including USGS. Mr Cowan is a former chair of the Mapping Science Committee of the United States National Research Council and is chair of the National Research Council’s Committee for the study of Land Parcel Databases.
The document was also reviewed by an internationally recognised expert in Geographical Information and National Mapping who agreed with the analysis and conclusions.
This latter bit intrigued us. An “internationally recognised expert”, eh? Except it turned out that he or she did not want to be identified, although he or she works or has worked full-time for a foreign mapping agency, and read the study for free. And that OS transacted everything with the expert by spoken word:
A copy of the report was provided to the person concerned and engagement on this matter was conducted orally with no permanent record made of these conversations.
And now in response to my latest Freedom of Information request for
copies of all emails and/or documents internally relating to the decision to choose this person – for example, discussion of who would be suitable candidates or who would not be suitable candidates to carry out the review of the report
OS replies:
There was no decision process in place to find suitable candidates. An opportunity presented itself to request the opinion of a global expert in this field which was undertaken orally. The resultant opinion was expressed orally and there was no permanent record made of these conversations.
So here’s what happens. You have a report. You happen to bump into an old mate. “Hey, want to read my report?” you say. “Sure,” they say. They read it. “Seems OK,” they say. You go back to your office and tell people “I met X who says it’s fine.” Even though the report is a thrown-together farrago of disconnected information about various national mapping agencies and their charging methods, combined with an unrelated chunk of poorly displayed data about national GDP versus national R&D expenditure, which cannot by any reasonable measure be claimed to justify anything about any charging model.
This then becomes “The document was also reviewed by an internationally recognised expert in Geographical Information and National Mapping who agreed with the analysis and conclusions.”
If there is anyone at Ordnance Survey who is prepared to defend this course of events, could they please get in touch? Or even the international expert, who is very welcome to comment anonymously to explain whether they think OS’s representation of their opinion is justified. Comments are open.
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Well, that was quick: OS responds to FOI re international expert; mystery deepens (if that's possible) (31 July 2009; score: 47.91%)
- ..but we're just as quick: more questions re the international man (or woman) of mystery (31 July 2009; score: 43.79%)
- International man/woman of mystery: the silent, uncommunicative type, apparently (3 September 2009; score: 41.52%)
- International man/woman of mystery is: international; from an NMA (3 August 2009; score: 40.16%)
- International expert fun rumbles on (10 November 2009; score: 39.29%)
November 28th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Is there anyone, at any institution, prepared to defend anything, before the public gets the feeling that a lot of money is going into very deep holes matched only by equally deep pockets… whilst being treated rather casually and then covered up left, right and centre.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Have you considered making a complaint to the Ombudsman (http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/), whose jurisdiction includes “unfair or improper actions or poor service by UK government departments and their agencies”, about the arbitrary and non-transparent way in which this supposed expert’s evidence was solicited and then used? OS is one of the bodies listed.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
“Outrageous”. “Incredible”.
Would that be more or less outrageous and incredible than having an independent review of trading funds carried out by an independent expert who just happened to be the Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, and is therefore completely unlikely to have had any previous opinion on the subject matter of the said independent review?
Not alleging bias, obviously. Just asking. I know from other contexts that it is often hard to find someone with a high degree of expertise in a subject who is not already partisan in some debate or issue of the day.
It would have been more illuminating if half the energy and blog centimetres that have gone into “hunt the international expert” had been devoted to explaining exactly what is wrong with the OS study. People seem to have got very exercised about the identity of this mysterious personage, but ignored what the report actually says (unless it’s been discussed extensively somewhere else). Why is that?
Maybe to those in the know the deficiencies are obvious and not worth discussing. E.g. I didn’t comment on the Cambridge Report when it came out, even though I didn’t think very much of it – it seemed long on theory and equations, but the conclusions were actually driven by a small number of assumptions, some of them pretty arbitrary, if you followed it all through. Plus at the time I worked for OS, which obviously rendered me completely unworthy to comment or hold an opinion of any sort.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
@Paul – good questions. Who is Rufus Pollock? He’s an economist and research fellow at Cambridge University: http://www.rufuspollock.org/about/ . Yes, he’s also director of the Open Knowledge Foundation. Who appointed him to co-write (don’t forget it was a team effort, which also included a legal expert) the trading funds report? The government did. (The Cabinet Office, I think it would be.)
What was the government looking for? Expertise in economics, one suspects. Do we know what they said in their report? Yes, apart from the parts which were determined commercially confidential by the government and/or trading funds.
What qualities does the “international expert” have? We don’t know, apart from – and we have to take OS at its word here – they’re an expert, and they’re not from the UK, and they work or have worked for a national mapping agency. What did they say about the report? They “agreed with its analysis and conclusions”.
The report itself tries to see if there’s any link between the funding model and the quality of data that a mapping agency produces. It fails, because there isn’t one that is simply expressed. It tries to suggest that there might be a connection between R&D in the economy as a percentage of GDP and the funding method for each nation’s mapping agency, which is ludicrous – why should there be any connection between them?
There’s an examination of the report (in its initial redacted form) at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/01/ordnance-survey-censored-report-released . It’s also been commented on by Ed Parsons.
If you find it very convincing then do explain what it tells us. And we’d welcome your opinions on developments since.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
@Paul Taylor
“People seem to have got very exercised about the identity of this mysterious personage, but ignored what the report actually says (unless it’s been discussed extensively somewhere else). Why is that?”.
Why? For the simple reason that since much of the published version the published OS report was redacted, the conclusions within, had to be taken on faith and so depended on the credibility and supposed expertise of the “Internationally recognised expert”.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
The question now is…
…was the Ordnance Survey’s report, together with the unconventional manner in which it was comissioned and reviewed, a case of cock-up, or conspiracy?
Either way those in the OS who oversaw it, should now consider their positions.