…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.

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”.

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.

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.