Guest Blogs

Determining the economic indicators that could be used to measure the economic activity from the re-use of public sector information is but one part of the process of preparing to undertake regular economic measurements. To undertake a measurement one needs to identify the value chain that is the subject of the intended measurement. The economic studies undertaken over the past decade have adopted the cascade approach as a way of establishing the value chain that may exist. An alternative approach is that which the European Commission intends to adopt when the Commission initiates regular economic measurements at three monthly intervals commencing in the September to October 2010 timeframe.

The approach the European Commission has adopted is to use a sampling technique whereby a subset of any particular value-chain is pre-established prior to commissioning an organisation (via an open competitive competition) to undertake regular periodic economic measurements. The European Commission led PSI Group has formed a number of economic indicator subgroups. One of the tasks these subgroups have been set is to determine the sample value-chain that relates specifically to an information sector. That is to identify the various bodies on both the supply (public sector) and the demand (the re-users) sides of the value-chain. Once the bodies in the value-chain have been identified the next task is to seek approval from each body in the chain that they are willing to participate in the periodic measurements. That is the organisation will provide information when the economic measurement is undertaken. The information to be provided will be for a small number of indicators chosen by the Commission but based on recommendations from the PSI Group.

Determining the entire length of the value chain requires an appreciation of the type of information involved and the information flows between organisations within the value chain. For example Business Registers (Company Registration information). It is for this reason that the Commission has established five subgroups each of which is handling one thematic category of public sector information. As a result the membership of each subgroup comprises of stakeholders that have knowledge pertaining to the particular information sector that the subgroup is responsible for.

One’s first thoughts when constructing the value-chain maybe that the main difficulty is determining the demand side of the value chain. In particular the organisations adding value after the first organisation down stream of the public sector information holder that added value. This is based on the premise that the value chain starts from one public sector body. This is the simplest approach to developing the value chain but in reality the value chain even on the supply side maybe far more complex. On the demand side the value chain also includes service providers that provide services to the bodies that are adding value to the information as the information passes along the value-chain. For example legal services, language translation services.

The number of public sector information holders is numerically large and these public sector bodies are distributed across different levels of government from the local level right though to the Member State level. In some European Member States the public sector information may flow across four or more levels of government. One consequence of this is that depending on the category of information there maybe within the public sector a value-chain that exists as each public sector body undertakes its assigned public task. In the process each public body in the value-chain adds value by adding further data to that passed to it by an upstream public sector body. From the public sector information re-use perspective the data can be obtained from each of the public bodies within the value-chain on the public sector (supply) side of the overall value chain. A further complexity is that each European Member State has a different organisational structure. As a consequence this will also likely to impact the value-chain. This then raises the question as to how many value-chains to measure in order to take into account these Member State differences.

One of the value-chains to be constructed by the PSI Group subgroups is that related to Address Information. In this context the work of the European Union eContentplus funded project European Address Infrastructure (EURADIN) is of interest. The EURADIN report titled: Business Model: Social and Economic Benefits, considers 5 value-chains related to address information:

1. The Navigation and Location Based Services value-chain (Section 7.4.1, page 34)
2. The E-Commerce value-chain (Section 7.5.1, page 46)
3. The Geomarketing value-chain (Section 7.6.1, page 49)
4. The Delivery Logistic value-chain (Section 7.7.1, page 51)
5. The Telecommunications value-chain (Section 7.8.1, page 53)

The report indicates that even within an information sector various value-chains are likely to exist.

In considering the value-chain related to the re-use of public sector information it becomes apparent that this is a complex area to understand and measure. It is not surprising that the techniques for measuring economic activity with respect to the re-use of public sector information are still evolving.

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If your organisation would like to participate in the regular measurement then please contact the European Commission's facilitator for this activity by email. The resources expended by participating once every three months are considered to be minimal.

Over the past decade a number of economic studies related to public sector information have been undertaken. Some studies have adopted a top down approach, others a bottom up approach and yet others a thematic approach. A number of the studies have also included comparisons with Countries outside of Europe. The European Union (EU) by its nature embraces 27 Member States and such comparisons are inherent when assessing the economic activity at the pan European level from the re-use of public sector information.

The information published by Eurostat demonstrates that the economies of the Member States within the Union vary. Other variations exist across Member States such as for example:

• The structure of the public sector;
• The public task of public sector information holders;
• Whether the information is held centrally by one public sector body or is held across a range of public sector bodies;
• The degree to which the public sector information is held electronically.

The question then arises as to whether these variations have an impact on the value added chain related to the re-use of public sector information? If the answer to this question is YES then is there a need to take this into consideration when establishing economic measurement indicators?

An interesting example of comparing value chains has been published in the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research under the heading Value of Geographic Information in November 2009. Assessing Geographic Information Enhancement, by Bastiaan van Loenen and Jaap Zevenbergen of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The paper develops a methodology for considering value adding within a value chain. The objective is to improve the understanding of the conclusions reached from economic studies undertaken on the re-use of public sector information especially when the studies have made comparisons across different jurisdictions. The methodology developed is then applied through a number of case studies that compare the value chain in three EU Member States with that in the USA.

One of the cases studies considered in the paper was that of the value chain related to Cadastral parcels the results of which are shown diagrammatically in Figures 7, 8 and 9 in the paper. The case studies show the difference between European Member States value chains with those of the value chains in the USA. In Europe the public sector Cadastral Institutes have undertaken many of the value added processes before the data becomes available for re-use where as in the USA these value added processes are provided by the private sector. In other words the data becomes available for re-use far earlier than it does in Europe. As a result one would then expect to see higher value adding processors in the value chain in Europe as the lower value adding processes have been undertaken by the public sector itself. The paper also refers to European Union activities such as the European Union Land Information Service (EULIS), which potentially enables a value chain comparison to be made between the Federal level of the USA with the European Union level.

The results of the Delft University research paper would indicate that there is a difference in the public task of each of the public sector bodies included in the case study. As a consequence this has an impact on the analysis of the results of economic measurements especially when making comparisons across different jurisdictions. The study would suggest that there maybe a need when determining the economic measurement indicators to take such variations into account. The variations may have different impacts for each thematic category of public sector information.

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If you would like to participate in round table public discussions on the PSI re-use value chains at the public meeting that will be held on the 8^th June 2010 in Madrid then please contact the meeting co-ordinators (Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio, Spain (MITC) or ePSIplatform).

GeoVation is an Ordnance Survey (OS) initiative that’s funded and managed by OS with input from “external champions”. According to the GeoVation website (www.geovation.org), while GeoVation is founded and currently financially supported by OS, its mission is to: “’encourage and support innovation for social, economic and environmental benefit through the use of all geography’; not just the products and services of Ordnance Survey.” Apparently this decision was the subject of quite a lot of discussion in the OS boardroom. My view is that GeoVation is a more credible initiative if it is not exclusive to OS, so they made the right decision.

GeoVation’s aims are to:

1. promote the use of geography in innovation
2. make innovating with geography easier
3. provide support to new innovations that use geography by connecting people with geographic expertise to those who require it in realizing their objectives.

Membership is open to all. There is a small management committee organizing GeoVation’s activities right now.

In early October GeoVation announced “the GeoVation Awards Programme (GAP)”: a competition to develop new ideas that use geography. Entries opened on the 6th of October 2009 and closed on 4 January 2010. The judges were looking for ideas that demonstrated their innovative potential, sustainability and how they use geography.

The Awards were supported by OS, Ideas in Transit, ESRI, and the Technology Strategy Board, and attracted 150 ideas for 60 ventures. The judges created a short list of 9 finalists, who were all asked to present to and answer questions from the judges and attendees at Tuesday’s event, for the opportunity to win one of four cash prizes, with the money to be used to develop the winning ideas.

Full descriptions of the short-listed projects can be found on the GeoVation blog, here, http://www.geovation.org.uk/blog/. They were:

1. Mapland England & Wales: a massive (13m x 11m) walk-on map of England and Wales with full topographical detail.
2. Online Route cards for hill walkers: A site to provide walkers with tools to help plan appropriate routes, and the ability to have automatic messages sent to a designated emergency contact if the walker doesn’t arrive on time.
3. Mission: Explore London: a project to engage young people with geography through playful and thought-provoking missions.
4. Mapping Britain on Horseback: a British Horse Society initiative that aims to collate all equestrian routes in the UK.
5. Goodfindr iPhone App: using geography to source soft commodities in season.
6. London Blue Plaque: a search facility showcasing the hundreds of Blue Plaques erected over the years to commemorate famous people and places that have helped shape London and the world.
7. MaxiMap: a large-format educational floor map.
8. The Open Climate Data Repository: a service to provide a set of web-based tools to allow the public to view, analyze and feed back on climate data.
9. Open.HistoryMap: A project to map historic features, events and maps against a background of today’s maps or aerial imagery.

The entries ranged from existing, profitable businesses to ideas and vague plans for the creation of sustainable services.

The original plan had been to award four cash prizes: one for £10,000, two for £5,000, and the community choice award, voted by the audience, of £1,000. In the end, the judges decided to split the money differently, awarding £3,000 to London Blue Plague; £7,000 to Mission:Explore; and £10,000 to MaxiMap. MaxiMap also won the community prize.

I was pleased to see MaxiMap take home first prize: it’s run by two women, one of whom was a schoolteacher, who have created a simple and easy-to-use tool to help overcome some of the challenges of teaching children geography. Their presentation was clear and concise, their financials were sound, and they’ve already tested their idea and achieved some success. Well done, MaxiMap! And of course all of the other finalists.

The GeoVation champions also deserve congratulations, not only for creating an interesting event and encouraging innovation: for every person who attended the awards showcase (which was free), GeoVation donated £10 to MapAction. The day raised £750 for MapAction (www.mapaction.org), and chair Steven Feldman encouraged all of us to go home and match that contribution, to help the charity do more on its upcoming trip to Haiti. If you’re not familiar with MapAction, I’d encourage you to take a look at their site, and also consider a donation.

GeoVation plans to put on these awards next year, with the expectation that they will be more independent from OS. It will also be interesting to see where all of the finalists are with their businesses and projects in a year. If you’re interested in GeoVation, or the awards, check out the GeoVation site for information on the finalists’ progress, and upcoming events.

We assembled an excellent panel to discuss Labour and Conservative PSI policies and Locus’s perspective on issues surrounding PSI licensing, pricing and regulation. We also left plenty of time for attendees to ask questions, and raise their own issues for discussion.

Our panelists were:

Francis Maude MP, Conservative Shadow Cabinet Office Minister and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Minister leads the Party’s Implementation Unit, which is tasked with determining how policies will be implemented should the Conservatives win the General Election;

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deputy head (Research) of the School of Electronics and Computer Sciences at the University of Southampton, and the Prime Minister’s Information Advisor; and

Sir Bryan Carsberg, Locus President, and former Director General of the Oftel and the Office of Fair Trading.

I chaired the event.

The presentations were thought-provoking and there was plenty of stimulating discussion. Here are some of the highlights:

Nigel Shadbolt spoke first, going through some of the key elements of the manifesto for government data that he and Tim Berners-Lee have published, (and which I referenced in my last blog; you can find it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jan/21/timbernerslee-government-data), and talking about the new data.gov.uk website. Some interesting points:

• “We’re now moving from a web of documents to a web of data”.
• Most of the government PSI that has gone onto the website is in spreadsheet format.
• On release day, the data.gov.uk website had 700,000 hits; the web servers had to be replaced three times to keep up with demand. Within the first 40 minutes of the site going online, users had created three new web applications using government data. The site is currently in Beta: it’s not “complete” and it’s hoped it never will be.
• The site is all open source, done quickly and at low cost. It uses the same platform as Wikipedia.
• In creating the data.gov.uk site Professor Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee had to grapple with the issue of what data should be free. Their view is that if creation of the data has been paid for by the taxpayer, then the public should have it. Further, if information is available through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, why should it not be published as an RSS feed?
• When it comes to determining what data should be made public, the question should be not why, but why not.

Next up was Francis Maude, who opened by stating that “there is a decent chance of continuity” — that the Conservatives would very likely continue the great work that’s been done to release government data already. Other points made:

• The Conservatives recognize that having open data is uncomfortable for government ministers. “Transparency is not always agreeable.”
• We need public money to be spent better. Government spends £4 for every £3 it generates in revenue. That has to change. “We see transparency as a friend of that process.”
• We need to enlist the public to crowd-source consultancy, to be “armchair auditors” to scrutinize government spending.
• It’s understandable how we got to the current situation. OS and the Met Office are required to cover their costs; they then felt empowered to create added value and have squeezed out the private sector. This is not for the benefit of the economy as a whole. There’s in-built conflict in this arrangement.
• If we have the data, we should just put it out there. The Conservatives would release information on the salaries of the 35,000 most senior government employees and all contracts over £25,000 in value; provide an XML feed of council decisions; and publish the COINS database (this is the Combined Online Information System. It contains the Treasury's detailed analysis of departmental spending under thousands of category headings). Some of this will be uncomfortable.
• We need to balance getting the data out there with making everything just right; we would be inclined to trade off some quality in the interests of making data available more quickly.
• We propose to carry forward the work Nigel and Tim have done.

Our final speaker was Sir Bryan Carsberg, Locus’s President, and formerly the Director General of Oftel (Ofcom’s predecessor) and the Office of Fair Trading.

Sir Bryan opened with “Carsberg’s principles of regulation”: The best form of regulation is the promotion of competition. Monopolists often have an interest in postponing uses of new technology. Liberalization has been a tremendous boon in the telecom sector; there would be enormous benefits if we can open up use of information. Other points included:

• Pricing: Locus has always been cautious on price. It’s a no brainer that data financed by tax-payers should be released free; In other cases, we believe data should be provided at marginal cost.
• Locus is mainly seeking fair competition, whether or not the information is free.
• Information should be made available in an easy way: in telecom, we had the CLASS license. That provided ready access to the base infrastructure and the constraint that providers compete fairly. All players had access to the raw materials on the same terms, at the same price, with no-cross-subsidization by the incumbent.
• You could argue that many of the Trading Funds shouldn’t provide value-added services at all.
• No matter what the outcome of the OS consultation, “This will not work without regulation.”
• We can understand the reluctance to set up a regulator: it could be costly. Right now, though, we have OPSI, but it doesn’t have the power. So we’re incurring the cost and not getting the benefit.
• It needn’t be enormously expensive to regulate this sector. If there are big penalties for breaking the rules, that can be very effective.

The panel discussion was followed by a very lively question and answer session.

I asked to panel to comment on Sir Bryan’s assertion that we must have regulation if current PSI holders are to continue to act commercially. Nigel Shadbolt’s response was that quite a lot of time had been spent on the management of data to be released, the technology, and getting it all out under a Creative Commons license; how to regulate is still to be determined.

Francis Maude said he was reluctant to set up a range of new bodies: He feels that the OFT is good at this. But, “we’re open-minded.”

One participant said it would be “terrible if the whole environment changed on the first of April.” We’ve had years of consultation, but we do need to be able to prepare for whatever changes are brought in. We also need a set of principles that we can be sure will survive changes of government .

Other topics of discussion included:

The consultation on the future of Ordnance Survey: A key point: How much Ordnance Survey data should be made available for free, and the potential negative impact on existing commercial providers if, for example, OS maps, rather than raw data, are made freely available. Nigel Shadbolt responded that he and Tim Berners-Lee couldn’t avoid the issue of location and place when looking to open up government data. He felt the OS consultation didn’t need to be “as complex as it is.” He also finds it “odd to pay for information that you need to live your life.” There was general agreement in the room that raw data, such as boundaries, should be released. There is an argument that detailed mapping should not be released for free, but that all players, including OS, should have access to the raw data to create those maps, and should compete on the same terms to provide them.

Nigel said, :”Tim and I were told not to deal with OS. But we knew we had to. We will have to grasp the nettle…. We must decide what are the ‘totemic datasets’”.

How to find the right cost model to make data available for free: Francis Maude expressed relief that those of us who spend time of this issue also find it complex. Sir Bryan referenced the Cambridge Study, and noted that the cost of making basic data sets available is actually small. Some participants, though, disagree with the findings of the Cambridge Study, which assumes price elasticity of demand: it was noted that while there has been a 30% real price fall in MasterMap over the last few years, there has been no increase in use.

This led to a discussion of the whether or not Ramsey pricing (pricing according to the elasticity of demand of different customer groups through price discrimination) is appropriate where data is charged for. Sir Bryan noted that the OFT study concluded that the market could be greatly expanded if data was made available at marginal cost. He could see how Ramsey pricing could distort the market. Others considered it a mixed blessing for the mapping sector. Nigel Shadbolt suggested more work was required from economists.

Postcodes: There was a fair amount of discussion surrounding access to the postcode database. One participant said, “There will be trouble if we don’t release postcodes soon: OS and the Royal Mail have crucial pieces of data. Have we got a plan for dealing with postcodes and addresses?” The Ordnance Survey consultation document is vague on this issue. Nigel Shadbolt suggested that we should determine what the developer community would find most useful. However, if government doesn’t find a way to release postcodes, it’s likely the community will crowd-source them. Other participants made the point that there is a cost of maintaining the postcode address file, and that must be covered somehow.

Our Locus event highlighted the considerable progress that is being made in PSI policy in this country, but also emphasized that there is a long way to go in the next decade to unlock the full potential of the UK PSI marketplace. In particular, government must “grasp the nettle” of freeing up access to the postcode database and Ordnance Survey raw data so all can benefit fully from the PSI that has already been released.

In the world of PSI, meteorological data rarely seems to be leading the debate, and the reason why met data has such a small voice? Because we are a small sector. Private sector weather provision in Europe is an immature and underdeveloped market whose growth has been severely restricted by the difficulties accessing crucial PSI.

A brief comparison with the US market gives a clear illustration of how the market has been limited in Europe. In the US the market for commercial services is valued at over $1.4bn, with more than 250 private sector businesses employing thousands of staff. By comparison, here in Europe, the market is valued at only €650m, the number of private sector businesses across all of Europe is estimated to be no more than 60-70 employing relatively small numbers.

In terms of population or of GDP, there is no reason why the European market shouldn’t be of equivalent size to the US. The issue has been access to PSI, pricing of PSI and how PSI has been leveraged by the National Met Services in Europe to present barriers to entry for the private sector.

There’s no question that much has been achieved in selected EU territories since the passing of the PSI Directive, there are countries with liberal and forward thinking data policies, countries where met data is largely made available free or at marginal cost of dissemination.

But weather knows no borders, private sector weather businesses forecast the weather across Europe and we need data to do that. In order for Europe to benefit from a healthy, competitive weather market and for European businesses to compete on the world weather stage, the PSI Directive needs to be effectively implemented Europe-wide. Data needs to be readily accessible, on reasonable commercial terms, across ALL EU territories.

We are a long way from this, pricing of met data is hugely variable and in some cases hugely prohibitive. Prices for a single synoptic observation in some European countries can be as much as 64 euro cents – over €5k per annum for hourly data from a single weather station. Given that automatic weather stations can be purchased for between €5k and €20k you have a situation where the National Meteorological Service is recovering between 25% and 100% of the entire infrastructure cost from a single customer every year.

The emerging private sector in Europe is prevented from making a valuable contribution in the area of climate change as a result of prohibitive data pricing. The private sector can play a hugely important role in product innovation for corporate and industrial customers in the areas of energy conservation and carbon emissions. The private sector has the ability to create bespoke products to meet specific needs, as the market demands products in these areas so the private sector innovates and delivers. But our ability to do this is curtailed by the cost of climate data. The National Met Offices have access to historical data sets going back many years, for all of Europe. These same comprehensive data sets would cost the private sector millions of euros according to current tariffs.

All told we are a long way away from effective and consistent implementation of the PSI Directive Europe-wide, and as a result we have a weak private sector in Europe and serious restraints on innovation and product development.

A key move towards addressing this issue would be to close the loophole under Article 6 of the PSI Directive, which, in addition to recouping costs, allows for a “reasonable return on investment” – in other words charge anything you want!

However, such action is not imminent and in the meantime, at a time when weather and climate could not be of more importance to the world, opportunities are being missed.

In this last blog I have decided to write about one of our key daily tasks – PSI legislation and Commission's responsibilities in connection to this. As the guardian of the EC Treaty, the Commission ensures that community law is applied correctly. Consequently, it may launch infringement procedures against those Member States who fail to comply with Community law.

In the last 2 years we have initiated 3 infringement proceedings, namely against Poland, Sweden and Italy, for incomplete and/or incorrect implementation and application of the PSI Directive. I will not go into details where we stand with these proceedings. You can always get an up-date on our PSI Website.

What I would like to do today is to pass an important message to both the law makers and the re-users in these countries. Infringement proceedings are an opportunity to prepare better legislation, building on what we know today. My message to the law makers: "Be proactive! Bring together all stakeholders and discuss together about what kind of revised legislation would best help the PSI markets in your countries to grow and add value to your economies." And a message to the re-users: "This is your opportunity to actively participate in the drafting of new legislation." The Directive provisions have of course to be transposed into national laws, but Member States can go beyond by for example setting up quick and inexpensive means of redress. Many have already done so.

Finally, I would like to thank to the ePSIplatform people for giving me the chance to participate and share my views with the users of their Website. Any comment, and even critics, to my any of my views are welcome.

We are witnessing recently a positive political engagement and willingness to make government information more widely available and reusable in Europe. These are really good news. The UK's announcement to follow the USA www.data.gov initiative[1] was a first important milestone. Engaging Tim Berners-Lee for the job was an excellent choice. The Visby and Malmö Ministerial Declarations are important messages for the further development of the EU PSI policy agenda. They both recognise the economic potential of PSI re-use and call on the MS "to make data freely accessible in open machine-readable formats, for the benefit of entrepreneurship, research and transparency"[2].

"The demand side", reusers and other citizens, are also making their views known. In the Open Declaration on Public Services 2.0, a bottom up initiative of well known supporters of PSI reuse, such as Tom Steinberg or Alberto Ortiz de Zárate, they propose that public sector organisations provide information in open, standard and reusable formats, in ways that others can easily build on them. These messages add to the work of the PSI Alliance.

All these latest developments recognise PSI re-use as an important strand of the digital agenda. The task is now to concretise these high-level declarations into concrete actions and results, in every Member State, in all public sector bodies. Let's work hard for it. Last Friday Mme Kroes was appointed Commissioner designate for the Digital Agenda. Be sure that I will feed her with many ideas for supporting our work. We have a good opportunity ahead, but we will only succeed with the joint effort of all stakeholders. I count on your support.

[1] The UK's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has invited Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, to work with the UK Government to help them make data more accessible on the Web, building on the work of the Power of Information Task Force. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/10/berners-lee-downing-street-web-open

[2] Creating impact for an eUnion 2015 – "The Visby Declaration"

I have taken the opportunity to prepare a further PSI Blog Topic as a direct result of information that has recently been posted on the ePSIplatform.

It is my understanding that The National Archives within the UK is currently reported to be engaged on a re-branding programme which may have ramifications impacting upon the PSI Re-use industry. The aim of the re-branding exercise is one of change management which will seek to present the National Archives as a single unified presence which can be identified by one effective trading title.

Whilst the National Archives are of course free to address change to their management structure in such fashion as they believe fit and whilst it is fairly obvious that there may well be downstream benefits deriving from a single unified brand and market presence, I personally, am a little concerned as to possible repercussions concerning the effective phasing out of the OPSI brand.

Anyone who is involved with the wider PSI Re-use agenda within the UK will be aware of the sheer amount of dedication and hard work that Carol Tullo and her small team at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) have invested in creating a ‘Brand’ that is widely recognised and highly respected in its own marketplace.

The potential loss of the OPSI name in the brand transition being initiated by the National Archives will be regarded as a cause of some concern within the highly charged and vociferous PSI Re-use community, where a great deal of respect is vested not only in the brand itself, but also in the staff who have succeeded in creating and servicing same. It would indeed be true to state that the OPSI Brand has resonance not only within the UK but also within the Pan-European PSI re-use market, where the reputation of OPSI - precedes it.

Whilst I have no doubt that there will be a managed transition in terms of the brand unification programme, there will remain concern within the PSI community as to the loss of such a valued kite-marked presence.

Although there have been no formal announcements of which I am aware from within the National Archives, OPSI itself or the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI), I am given to understand that preparations for the re-branding exercise are well advanced.

My concerns may well be alleviated somewhat if there are clearly stated objectives and a well managed & signposted transition in which elements of the PSI community are recognised as stakeholders within the process encompassing the change management.

I have had the opportunity to post a number of blog topics on the ePSIplatform during the Month of October and I would look to this final blog posting as a means of summing up my arguments with regards the effective promotion of the PSI resource.

In my view, the ‘value’ of PSI should be exemplified in order that all participants within the information matrix are aware of the potential benefits of an effective information exchange mechanism. The burden of failing to realise this opportunity would fall on both public and private sector players and will be evidenced to the detriment of the pan European economies as a whole.

• The key message here is that public sector has to be engaged as an active and willing participant rather than being viewed as an adversary.

In my second Blog posting – the discussion centred on the prevailing cultural differences which affect the workplace relationship between Public & Private Sector participants

• It is this area where the strongest leadership and focus are required if we are to succeed in fostering positive engagement with the public sector data holders.

The third Blog posting concentrated on the differing ‘Value’ of PSI dependent upon the position within the information matrix.

• We are now in the 21^st Century – The Information Age – and it is essential that clearly a mandated policy framework is in place to deliver fair, open, transparent and accountable access & pricing policies from within the public sector.

The forth Blog posting related mainly to the UK Property Search market and showed proof that effective lobbying can grant access rights BUT that increased access rights:

• Come at a price in terms of actual cost and bureaucracy which remain beset by the divergence between public & private sector cultures

This blog is intended as a summary highlighting the positives, in order the PSI community are able to interface & engage in a reasonable manner with Public Sector bodies and exert reasoned arguments underlining the need to achieve that level of access which will allow the real growth of value added products to generate additional goods, services and benefits within the information market.

Finally, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the ePSIplatform for having allowed me the opportunity to voice my opinions.

This is an underpinning and frequently avoided question throughout all the commercial sectors that rely upon the re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI) to create value-added products for end users. But it should not be so¹.

Public Sector Information, is just that. It is information (of whatever kind) generated by enterprises that are government owned, run or commissioned at public cost (i.e. paid for out of revenues raised through taxation). One might therefore suppose that, fundamentally, such data “belongs” to the “public”; that is it belongs to those who have ultimately funded its generation, its management, handling and storage. But is this how ownership of these data are seen by those who, on behalf of the “public”, undertake the generation, management handling and storage of them?

Sadly, no. In fact, those government organisations responsible for these tasks on behalf of the public all too often regard the data as “theirs”, that is they see it as “owned” by them and to be provided to others only as a concession in return for some consideration such as a license fee or re-use fee, and not at all if, in their judgement, to do so might somehow make life too much harder for them. This is particularly (but not exclusively) so when those “others” lie within the commercial sector of the economy and intend to re-use the data to provide value-added products and services to the overall benefit of the economy in terms of employment and the generation of relative wealth.

A clear example of this thinking is to be found in the field of meteorology. Here the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the international Agency of the United Nations that co-ordinates meteorology world wide, has passed a Resolution of its Executive Council (WMO RESOLUTION 40 CG XII (1995)) that effectively allows all National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) to withhold the free provision of meteorological data that they have generated or hold (other than a strictly limited sub-set that in practice is too difficult to protect) to any organisation other than another NMHS. This deeply protectionist measure is rooted in the concept that the data “belongs” to the NMHS and not to the “public” who paid for it. In publicly available documents that can be found (with some searching) on the WMO web site, one can find statements such as:

“However, in some cases, the competition with private service providers has led to conflicts. Among the key issues that cause concern are access to NMHSs data and information (my italics) and the possible reduction in services provided by NMHSs.”

This mindset, is surely not one that a UN Agency charged with representing the interests of the entire meteorological sector world wide and not just those of the NMHSs, should support or encourage? The data are not “theirs” they are “ours”. They belong to the public and, subject to a reasonable charge for the additional work of retrieval and re-transmission; they should be freely available to us all.

[1]A detailed exploration of the nature and status of meteorological data can be found in:
Ton W. Donker; Access to and re-use of public-sector environmental data
And information. Policy developments with a focus on the european hydro-meteorological scene. Polish Academy of Sciences, Geographia Polonica, Vol. 80 No.2 (Autumn 2007).

Scientists at Imperial College, London have reported in the journal Science[1] that shorter, milder winters experienced since 1985 on St Kilda Island in the Hebrides, have resulted in smaller Soay sheep. This seems to be one of many impacts that are arising from changes in climate. Others, such as short term flooding, increasing storminess, longer and more frequent hot and cold spells, will give rise to significant social and economic consequences and the meteorological industry could potentially make a significant contribution to their management. But the charges levied by the National Meteorological Services (NMS), the custodians of climate data, for access to those data, are preventing this in many cases by making the resulting value-added contributions uneconomic.

“Climate” is actually the historical, integrated effect of “weather” and establishing what the past climate was and the current climate is requires the analysis of what are, on a day to day basis, mainly normal weather observations. Some observations are made specifically to allow the climate to be more fully defined than would be possible using only routine weather observations but often these “climate” observations are available to and used by the NMS for routine weather work as well. Which makes it all the more strange that some of these same NMS do not make such observations available to the Private Sector in real time. Moreover, when they are eventually made available as “climate data”, the NMS often charge huge sums of money for access to them.

It is true that data on which climate records are eventually based require additional quality control and computation beyond that which is normal for purely “weather” observations. A “daily” average temperature, for example, may be compiled from several hourly temperature measurements but in the age of automatic observing, processing and communication, this hardly justifies either preventing real time access to the original observational data or, when access to the climate data is available, the massive costs that are often charged for them. To obtain the full set of daily average temperatures (that is one number per day!) from a single station in Latvia for ten years (not at all an unusual requirement for the simplest climatological task) costs about 27,010 Euro! And this is for PSI for which the industry and the citizens, through their taxes, have already paid!

Is it any wonder that the information economy in weather and climate is growing at less than 2% per annum in Europe and is less than half the size of that of the USA?

[1] Ozgul A, et. Al. The dynamics of phenotypic change and the shrinking sheep of St Kilda. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1173668

Stockholm

I think we agree upon the difficulties in creating a fair market place for PSI re use. This is a marathon race and it will take a considerable amount of time to make the changes that will result in real growth in this European marketplace. However, if you look at the positive signs, it is easier to endure consistent work towards a better market place in the long run than a stop and start approach. Positive examples have a tendency to spread and this is why PSI Alliance now is looking for good practice in different countries.

We have a vision of a market where

• You can easily find information that is available for re use ( open asset lists )
• You are met by a positive attitude from the PSI Holder who really understands your role and wants to co-operate with you as a re user
• You are offered a fair price, primarily based upon the distribution cost
• You are offered conditions that do not restrict your product development
• You are not competing with the information holder itself, but with other value adding companies on the market
• You can easily and quickly find a way to solve any conflicts with the PSI Holder about the access to the information.

We obviously have the same vision. But how to get there?

As I have stressed before I think we have to join forces. One way to do it is to take part in the PSI Alliance, as I know you already are doing. The PSI Alliance is actively trying to find information about good and bad practice in different countries. But as you point out this does not seem to be enough to create the fast changes that we want. We have therefore suggested to the EU Commission that they should make continuous observations of the PSI market. This is similar to the review process that you are suggesting. I believe that the EU Commission needs to create a permanent PSI Market Observatory (PSIMO); this will assist in making observations between countries and between different PSI Holders. An Observatory, will enable us to follow the effects of different PSI price models, the different results if the authorities are or are not competing with the private industry, how special re-dress mechanisms influence the re-use business, the effects of active government support or non active support to re-users and other things that have an influence on the market.

Hopefully the creation of an Observatory will help show that changes in line with our vision will make the PSI re use market grow. We hope that evidence provided by an Observatory will help convince national governments and different authorities all over Europe to join us on the road to a better market for re use of PSI. Growth in the PSI marketplace will inevitably create more jobs in the European information industry – which is to everyone’s benefit. That is what we really want to happen - isn’t it?

Rolf Nordqvist

Chairman PSI Alliance

The European market for the re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI) is estimated to be 27 billion Euros a year. A huge amount of money. But we are not there yet and it is a large market to be exploited by the re-users. Why does it take such a long time to do what US re-users have already done? Why is Europe so far behind? I think that we have the answer in the way the different government authorities handles PSI in Europe. They act as if PSI belongs to them and not to the people and they are especially reluctant if private companies come and want to make profit out of “their” information. So when EU calls for PSI re-use the authorities continues the same way that they always have done – being restrictive and often preferring to distribute the information by themselves.

But what are the re-users doing? They often handle the discussion about access and re-use one by one with the authorities. Sometimes they complain about their situation to administrative courts or in some cases they complain to the EU Commission. But often they remain silent to avoid disturbing the relationship with their supplier of information, normally an authority in a monopoly situation.

Some of the re-users have started an organization to be stronger in their struggle to get better conditions for PSI re use. The PSI Alliance was founded last year (2008) with ambitions to exchange good and bad practice among its members and to speak with one voice to different stakeholders.

The PSI Alliance is now one year old and is active in the debate about what actions could or should be taken in order to raise the activity on the re-use market. On the 25 June PSI Alliance held a members meeting in Brussels to discuss different ways of going forward. We all agreed that the best way of doing that is to highlight good practice or good thinking and spread the best solutions among the re-users and PSI Holders. This was the theme on our re-user conference and is the theme for PSI Alliance during the forthcoming year.

Key examples of good practice and good thinking highlighted at the conference were:

• New pricing policies in the Netherlands. They are moving towards marginal cost/delivery cost on PSI. Of special interest in the meeting was pricing in the meteorological area. As from January 2009 prices on synoptic and radar observations are to be based on delivery costs.
• A new and more flexible re-dress mechanism has been implemented in Slovenia. In Slovenia you can apply to the Information Officer if you are dissatisfied with the decisions from Public Sector Bodies. In 2008 the Information Officer had to deal with 328 cases when Public Sector Bodies denied access/re-use to PSI or did not make any decision at all.
• The Competition Authority in Sweden has suggested (in a report to the Swedish government) that central government agencies should be prohibited to sell goods and services (including information) in competitive markets. Competitive distortions should be reduced by more effective rules for public selling activities.

This is good news for the PSI Alliance. We have for a long time struggled for better solutions when it comes to fair prices (marginal costs/delivery costs), fair competition (only competition among private companies) and more flexible ways to appeal when re-users and companies disagree. Now we can see signs that changes may happen in different European countries. So, if you have examples of good practice or good thinking please send them to the PSI Alliance and we will publish it on our web site for others to follow.

Rolf Nordqvist

Chairman PSI Alliance