Guest Blogs

A few weeks ago, I delivered a presentation entitled From Transparency to Re-Use at the annual meeting of the PSI-Alliance. I, along with many others, have always assumed that transparency and re-use of PSI facilitate each others. In a discussion with one of the conference participants, I came to realise that our tradition of transparency may in fact be an obstacle to re-use, rather than an enabler. I have come to realise that, although you cannot really have re-use without transparency, a tradition of transparency does not necessarily promote re-use of information. In the case Sweden, it could even be argued that a 200 year tradition of transparency constitute a major challenge to the improvement of conditions for commercial re-use.

The primary purpose of the PSI-Directive is to promote and facilitate commercial re-use of public sector information (PSI). For that purpose, public sector bodies are expected, and possibly obligated by law, to make information available to those wishing to access it. The primary purpose of transparency and freedom of information (FOI) is to ensure that citizens can hold officials and elected politicians accountable. For that purpose, public sector bodies are expected, and obligated by law, to make information available to those wishing to access it. The connection between the two seems obvious.

Sweden has a long tradition of transparency. Since 1766 public documents have been available to the public. Public sector information is accessible by law. The importance of transparency is universally accepted among Swedish officials, and there is a culture of openness. Officials, in most cases, do not feel that they “own” information, and they do not feel uncomfortable about information being distributed to others. Since 1766 citizens have been granted the right to reproduce public documents. The government does (with few exceptions) not claim copyright, and in most cases public sector information can be re-used without limitations. In that sense the tradition of transparency does indeed pave the way for commercial re-use.

However, the tradition of transparency may also prove a pedagogical challenge to re-use in the sense of the PSI-directive. The arguments for transparency are easy to sell. No-one is against democracy, or against tracking down corruption. The importance of re-use, let alone commercial re-use, is not as easy to sell to public servants. It is easier to convince public sector bodies to make information available to serve democracy, than to convince them to make information available to companies that want to make money.

Freedom of information does work in Sweden. Information is accessible even in practice and is being used by journalists and others. We cannot play the transparency/democracy card to convince agencies to make more information available, and to make it available in new forms. Public sector bodies have to be convinced of the importance of improving conditions for re-users, which is a lot more difficult.

In fact, facilitating re-use may even be perceived as a threat to transparency, even though there is no such conflict. The regulation concerning transparency is so well established in Sweden, that any changes may be perceived as threatening the very foundations of freedom of information. Such scepticism is understandable. It does, after all, stem from a genuine concern for democracy and the rule of law. On the less positive side, such scepticism may be a major pedagogical obstacle that has to be overcome by those promoting re-use.

To summarise, transparency and re-use do indeed facilitate each other, and re-use without transparency is unthinkable. Nevertheless, a country with a weaker tradition of transparency may actually have an advantage over those with a long established transparency system, at least from a pedagogical point of view.

July 1^st 2010 the new Swedish PSI (Public Sector Information) Act entered into force, and Sweden has now fulfilled its obligations according to the PSI Directive. One of the drivers behind the recent changes in Sweden has been the infringement process, which the Commission has launched against Sweden.

In his blog post of 4 December 2009 Javier Hernández-Ros of the European Commission claimed that infringement proceedings are an opportunity for the member states. Although no member state could possibly aspire to be the object of an infringement proceeding, I tend to agree with Mr Hernández-Ros. I would like to devote my first blog post to a few comments on this subject from a Swedish point of view.

The Commission has launched infringement processes against a small number of member states. One of them is Sweden, which came as a surprise to many. Sweden has a long history of transparency and access to documents as well as a long history of commercial re-use of public information. There is a market for public information, and there is a prosperous information industry.

Since everything worked fairly well in Sweden, the general feeling was that there was no need for a thorough analysis of the implications of the PSI Directive. Accordingly, the issue did not get much attention in the administration. The primary result of the infringement proceeding was to draw attention to the question of PSI.

The infringement proceedings brought PSI to the attention of politicians and ministries. A cross agency task force was set up with the mandate to draft new legislation to ensure full compliance with the directive. The result of the task force was a draft law, which, after a formal consultation process and re-drafting was passed by the Parliament, and entered into force 1 July 2010.

The attention caused by the infringement proceedings also prompted activities by agencies. At first, agencies were sceptical and worried. Some claimed that the PSI rules did not apply to them. Some claimed that it would be very difficult to comply with the directive and the new law. As agencies have started using their capacity and their creativity to find new ways of organising their activities, scepticism has turned to interest, maybe even enthusiasm. Few drastic re-arrangements have taken place, and agencies are less worried. We are on the path to a better understanding of the needs of re-users and how to better accommodate those needs.

The infringement proceedings also prompted activities that resulted in new knowledge. The task force made a survey of revenues from fees for re-use of information, and of legislation regarding such fees. The survey confirmed that the fees applied are in compliance with the directive. In addition to this, the survey has given the government an overview of these revenues that it did not have before.

Although no country could wish to be the object of infringement proceedings, the process against Sweden has indeed brought attention to PSI re-use. It has also prompted activities which would otherwise not have taken place. All in all, as suggested by Mr Hernández-Ros, the infringement proceedings provided “an opportunity to prepare better legislation, building on what we know today”.

Several years ago, I attended a conference at the Berlin Max Planck Institute. This was the time Larry Lessig was in residence in Berlin, so it must have been more or less June 2004. On the occasion, as you may expect, we discussed Creative Commons licenses. There we debated what I since always describe as the input/output issue.

Here are more or less the terms of the question. Suppose we have an artist who wants to release music under an open license, e.g. Creative Commons attribution. Maybe the artist is the writer and composer of the lyrics and of the music; maybe is also the performer; and may be also is doing the digital recording. In this case the artist probably is in total control of all the creative items which he or she sets out to license under CC. However, it may also well be that some of the inputs, be they the lyrics, the music, the performance, the sound recording, come from another person and entity. If this is the case, then the licensor might wish to make sure that she or he is in fact is authorized to license also these items by their respective right holders; and, more to the point, may wish to make sure that the authorization is specifically referred to a release under CC.

In Berlin, we also started to think in terms of making available to the general public information held by public institutions. Indeed, our host was the Max Planck Institute responsible for the History of Science; and it is well known that this is an institution which greatly cares for dissemination of information, data and knowledge among the public. This was probably the first time I started to consider PSI issues.

A lot of the material which was candidate to dissemination was (and is) in the public domain. However, the input/output issue cropped up also in that connection. It was considered that the process itself of digitization may lead to creation of IP protected works or materials. Consider the metadata: the blueprint (or format) for arranging them probably is creative most of the times. Even short descriptions of an item may attract copyright protection. No doubt, once these metadata are systematically arranged and individually retrievable, a data base is obtained; which means that possibly the sui generis right is triggered. So, to make available under an open license a final product incorporating material in the public domain plus metadata, one should wonder whether authority to make available metadata under open terms is available to begin with.

Another time I had to consider this constellation of facts was a major Italian digitization project, undertaken by an Italian public body and intended to be coordinated at the EU level with other Member State projects. Here again the input/output issue cropped up; and was complicated by the fact that the public body was cooperating with other local bodies and nationwide quasi-public institutions.

These situations do have a number of common features. How are the individual items created which go into the final, complex product, consisting of the original works plus any IP protected data which may be generated in the process of digitization? One possibility is that the job is done by employees of the digitizing institution. Also outside consultants may be employed for this purpose. It is also possible that the job is outsourced, that this that an outside contractor digitizes, creates the metadata, writes the program to make the content and the ancillary information available and so forth. Now, if this is the case, the digitizing institution should make sure that it has been granted an authorization for each and all the inputs which go into the final product by each of the persons or entities which created the individual inputs; and more specifically it should make sure that this authorization extends to the making available of the individual item under a free license.

This is not always a foregone conclusion. Indeed, we should consider that dealings in copyright protected works are based on a doctrine which continental Europeans describe as Zweckübertragung and common law lawyers describe as “divisibility”. This doctrine implies that copyright is made out of a bundle of exclusive rights; that each of these rights is independent of the others; and that the transfer, be it by assignment or license, of one right does not imply that also other rights are transferred. A transfer in gross of all the sticks of the bundle would not have effect; the parties must specify which rights they intend to transfer. If there is not enough by way of specificity, this means that the parties intended to transfer only the rights which were indispensible for the purpose the parties envisaged at the time of the contract.

This principle applies to copyright; but we know that also software is protected by copyright and moreover we may expect that several of the rules to be adopted in connection with data base rights are likely to be developed by case law on the basis of an analogy with copyright principles.

Now, application of this doctrine in the pre-digital environment makes a lot of sense. After all, most of the time, the creator is the weaker party; and it does make sense that he or she should not part with rights unless he or she has specifically accepted to transfer them (and has obtained consideration for this).

However, application of the doctrine may create uncertainty if applied to digitization projects and more generally to PSI. What happens if the employee of the digitizing institution has not signed away his or her rights (on the inputs) providing that he or she authorizes that these are incorporated into a larger product and that this product is disseminated via an open license? What happens if the outside contractor has not signed away its rights with sufficient specificity to comply with the doctrine of Zweckübertragung? Of course it may be argued that the scope of the authorization for the inputs may be inferred from the fact that the creator of the input did know what the contribution was intended for.

This is a solution to the input/output problem which may make sense in many, if not all cases. However, it is also possible to see the issue as one in which ideally a default rule might be created by legislation. It would be sufficient that legislatures spelled out that, any time a employee or an outside contractor works for a public body and the purpose of this public body directly or indirectly includes the dissemination of knowledge, data or information, then any transfer or license from the employee or outside contractor to the public body is presumed to include authorization to make available the input downstream, individually or in combination with other works or materials, under an open license. This is an area which is within the jurisdiction of each Member State, as it usually is the case in connection with rules on ownership. So this is the level in which a solution may be proposed.

This proposal was presented to the Italian government several years ago (in 2006); but it never was taken up. Maybe the time has come to think about it again. In the meantime, it may make sense to look at the contracts with all the parties involved in digitization projects or the creation of PSI data sets, to make sure that the output may be released openly to the outside world without the nasty surprise that some of the inputs which go into it are not clearly available on open terms.

In my first post, I promised to give some thought on the issue of the different options available to a public administration which intends to enable access to public sector information. Let us take a specific example; and one which links to the idea that we should give priority to exploring what happens at the local, rather than national level. Everybody knows what treasuries of art and culture may be found in most Italian towns. It may happen that a Region or municipality may provide funding to digitize images and texts it holds in some of its museum archives and libraries. Here I think about Sicily, which, I am told, unveiled late in April an initiative exactly in this field. Now, we are talking here only of works which are out of copyright. So, if for a moment we leave out intellectual property right which may be generated during the digitization process, to which I will come in the next blog, we are dealing with content which basically is free.

The question may arise: what is the optimal license which the local administration may choose to release this content?

In this regard, we might start to consider that a wise local administrator may have in mind an approach which intuitively leads her o him to discard the possibility of authorizing commercial re-use of this kind of content. The idea behind this initial reaction might be as follows. Public money has been spent on digitization of content; now, all is fine and well if digitized content is disseminated as widely as possible to enable study, research, entertainment and the like. But enabling these goals is clearly possible even if the authorization to access and re-use is limited to non commercial uses. Conversely, it might be argued, it does not make sense that content digitized with taxpayers’ money is appropriated by profit making entities to build on it a proprietary product and service and sell on the market goods and services based on it.

This line of argument is plausible at first glance, but probably misguided if we stop to think a bit further and this on at least two accounts.

First, we should consider the concept of chain of authorizations. Non profit institutions, like Wikipedia and other aggregators of information and cultural content, undoubtedly contribute a great deal to the dissemination of knowledge, information, culture. However, they do so because the content they make available is accessible downstream without restrictions; the reason of the great success of Wikipedia and the like organizations is that they make anything they put together available to anybody without strings attached. To do so, however, Wikipedia has to make sure the content it incorporates is totally free to begin with; the flipside of the coin is that Wikipedia cannot incorporate content which would otherwise be splendid in complementing or illustrating its store of knowledge because it comes with restrictions. Now, if the Sicilian digital content was made available only for non-commercial re-uses, Wikipedia could not incorporate it, because the content would carry strings attached which are incompatible with Wikipedia’s modus operandi.

Second, we should consider that, once digitization costs are incurred, it does not make any difference whether the re-user makes a profit from re-use. No marginal cost is incurred because there is an additional re-user. If he or she is smart enough to create a business model which enables her or him to combine this input with other inputs and make money out this, nice for him. Nothing is taken away from the public.

Of course, there would be a disadvantage to the public if the re-user is able to obtain monopoly or even market power through the use of digitized content created by public funds. This may indeed happen in a number of ways. This unwanted outcome would result if content digitized by public money were made available on terms of exclusivity. But this is a good reason to avoid exclusivity, not commercial use. It is also possible that the re-user combines publicly funded digitized content with proprietary content; and secures a dominant position on the strength of the combination of the two complementary items. Economists would suggest that, if this is the case, there would be an incentive for new entrants to create and offer competitive complementary content; that is, if the publicly funded content is made available to all comers, without exclusivity. Of course, it may also happen that the “powerful” re-user controls so many important complementary assets, that the chances of a competitive challenge are slim. This is a possibility; but it is arguable that this occurrence is an externality which should be taken care by regulation, e.g. by means of antitrust enforcement or by application of the so called doctrine of essential facilities. Indeed, if publicly digitized material were made available only on the condition that it is used non commercially, it might happen that this restriction is more detrimental to firms intending to enter the market that to an entrenched business leader.

Admittedly, this is a very tentative line of reasoning. However, we are in a situation where a large enough number of licenses for public sector information have been adopted and used. So the time has come to do some empirical research on what is done; and some theoretical hypothesis on what may constitute best practice. At this stage, we should start to ask whether licenses restricting re-use to non commercial uses are superior. Maybe the line of reasoning I tried to sketch out can be a starting point.

In my previous posting I promised to go into more detail on elements I think are useful when writing a business case for opening up PSI.

Writing such a case is useful for two things. First to help make decisions about the allocation of resources in your government institution, and second to clarify for yourself what should be the things that get most of your attention.

This because a generic business case for open PSI cannot be made in a way that is relevant for your government institution. The only somewhat generic case to be made for open PSI is the current cost of 'adding openness' at the end of your process, because of the FOIA requests you are receiving, in comparison to the cost of designing your processes in a way that creates open PSI by default. In all other instances it needs to be more tangible than that to be able to both convince colleagues, and help you plan the actions to get it done.

Always start any business case with the statement that opening up PSI is the law. It's not a question of whether you should do it, you already MUST do it. So a business case is needed not to provide the rationale for doing it, but to provide the rationale for how to do it, why it is useful to your institution beyond the law, and when to do it. A business case should address why your institution WANTS to open up PSI and do so according to the open government data principles, and what is needed so you CAN do it. To make clear what you mean with open PSI and open government data, make sure to include the open government data principles.

If you look at the list of underlying assumptions hidden in generic 'business case' requests, you can now juxtapose each of them with a more constructive approach. I would make these juxtapositions explicit in your business case. I hope the following paragraphs help you in building your case this way.

1 Connect your open PSI business case to your institution's policy goals (in place of generic case)

What policy goals do you have that match different possible areas where open PSI is an opportunity? What can open PSI mean to delivering on those policy goals?

What tasks are you already performing for stakeholders connected to those areas of opportunity where open PSI might help to improve delivery of those tasks? How are you currently addressing your stakeholders existing information needs? E.g. the Dutch Ministry of Education finds that by providing standard information products as open PSI, the demand for specific information products declines, while the remaining specific questions are easier to answer with the standard information products as starting point and building blocks. Thinking in terms of your organization's goals also helps you focus on the PSI you actually need to open. This focus on both goals and the PSI needed for it makes it possible to create a tangible case.

2 Describe the results you're after in terms of those policy goals (in place of trying to know and calculate all returns)

If your policy goal is about increasing participation, what is the impact of your open PSI plan on participation? And which PSI needs to be open to create that impact? Or if it is about internal efficiency, where will it help save costs (like reducing the amount of work spent on responding to FOIA requests, by making PSI public in reusable format from the start)? Describing your results in terms of your policy goals, avoids the pitfall of trying to describe your results in terms of money only. Also try to word results as the minimum result likely to be realized, in place of trying to quantify the results absolutely which is largely impossible in most situations.

3 Make visible that there will be other results as well (in place of trying to know all returns)

Any opening up of PSI will create effects in multiple places. What those results will be may or may not be easily visible at the start. But it is very well possible to use illustrations of effects of opening up PSI elsewhere to get an indication of what is likely to happen. Including the non-obvious or surprising things. Find examples of effects elsewhere, and compare them to your own context to see how likely it is you will see similar results. The connection to your organisation's policy goals in the point above should be leading though. This is more of a bonus which can help tip the scales. Some good starting points to find examples are this EPSI platform, the US Sunlight Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list on open government data, Our Data, and the data.gov.uk or Spanish government data catalogues. It may also be useful to ask your relevant stakeholders what they think they could and would do with the specific open PSI you're aiming at.

4 Make your plan a journey, not an event (in place of a one-off decision, and in place of trying to 'prove' causality between investment and result up front)

As opening up your organization's PSI in reusable ways is a question of when and how, not if (as you must do it anyway), it makes sense to start where that makes most sense, for instance with easily available, non-controversial data sets. Which of those 'easy' datasets do you have whose release you can connect to your organization's goals? Also if those first steps are relatively light-weight, there may not be a big need to justify the effort in the first place. You can perhaps 'just do it'. This makes for great experiments that are not disastrous if anything goes wrong.

Use those first steps to gain experience in dealing with organizational and technological issues involved (things like learning to work with the relevant open standards inside your organization, or how to deal with feedback received on published material). Use those first steps to also measure results both in terms of actual results (downloads, forms of reuse, feedback you got), as well as in terms of what did not happen (no 'mis-use' of data, no negative feedback in the press etc.), and use those measurements to justify the when and how of your next steps.

5 Count costs only if they can be realistically allocated to you (in place of trying to separate all costs involved)

There are a lot of costs that you could count towards your open PSI project, but can just as easily be argued to not be part of your project. The link to your organizational goals is the linking pin here. If your goal is higher participation for instance there will already be people allocated to activities in this field. An open PSI project can be part of their portfolio, without having to count all employee costs towards your project. Also there will be costs that become apparent because of an open PSI project, but are not realistically part of the costs of the project. Think for instance of switching to using open standards for all the PSI in your organization. That is required by law in the Netherlands since 2008, regardless of the fact whether you are going to release that PSI publicly or not. If your organization hasn't switched to open standards yet, and needs to do so to release open PSI, those costs really should not be allocated to your project. Also it may be very well possible to add certain steps of your project to existing efforts, without causing those existing efforts to run up more costs. Where there is less costs, making your case is easier as well as less necessary to convince others (but still very useful to gain insight yourself).

6 Compare costs against previous and other projects (in place of having the investment completely create its own return, outside of any other context)

When you have connected your open PSI project to your organization's policy goals, you can make a comparison of how your projected results and costs, compare to those of other programs and projects aimed at the same organizational goals. It may create a completely different perspective on the relation between investment and result, by showing your case in the context of other work of your organization.

7 Use experience from elsewhere to show which risks are and aren't realistic (in place of trying to list all risks), involve your stakeholders in this (in place of preferring to pass up opportunity)

A number of fears surface every time around open PSI, and with the experience gained by already open PSI there are already good examples out there to help you visualize realistic and unrealistic fears. List those fears and show with examples how they play out, and how they can be dealt with. Such as the notion 'we can't publish this data, because there are errors in it'. In practice (the UK e.g.) we see that the quality of datasets that are published actually increases, both due to feedback as well as because of more attention being given to generating the data in the first place. Such as the notion that 'non-experts will interpret the data wrong', where in practice we see that all kinds of wrong interpretations are out there already, and having the data widely available means more people can point that out, as well as verify for themselves what's right and not. Reduce fears about e.g. privacy violations by choosing your datasets, as well as the aggregation levels involved wisely.

It is I think also important to involve all relevant stakeholders in conversation around this. Some perceived risks are based on assumptions being made about certain stakeholders, without ever having been verified by asking those stakeholders.

When you can't really meet the list of points mentioned, it still doesn't make sense to say 'no', as opening up PSI is still required by law. It means you probably need to look to different organizational goals and different parts of the PSI your organization holds to get started and to make your case. That will help you start in a place that actually will yield results as well as momentum to do more.

Opening up PSI is not merely a technology question, despite it being the law and even if everybody would be prepared to act accordingly already.

There's a range of questions involved, and each of them can be a reason for people to not act. They may be less relevant, or less problematic if you choose your goals and PSI to start with wisely. But keep in mind that all of the following issues will surface at some point in the process, around technology, organizational issues, markets and legal aspects:

Technology: level of knowledge about open standards, what 'reusable' and 'machine-readable' formats actually are and how they are connected to open standards, meta data, consistent ways of publishing PSI.

Organization: where to design publishing of open PSI in your processes, how are you going to handle feedback from outside, how will you monitor reuse so you can learn from those examples, how to stay in dialog with all relevant stakeholders, how to measure the results and impact of your open PSI for your own organization

Markets: ensuring equal access and a level playing field for everyone, licensing (specifying how you deal with government copyright), fees for providing information (soon to be restricted to incremental costs of distribution in the Netherlands) and its impact on a level playing field, defining where you just publish PSI 'as is' and where you want to enrich the info based on one of your own tasks as government institution, monitoring new economic activity generated by your open PSI.

Legal: knowing who is making the decisions about licenses/copyright and withholding PSI from publication based on national interests (security, economy), and communicating those decisions, as well as making sure the reasoning behind those decisions is verifiable.

I hope some of my notions described here help you move forward open PSI and open government data in your government organization!

In my post Being Aware of all Open PSI Stakeholders, I promised to go into the 'business case' for open government data and PSI. And I will. But not before formulating some general caveats when it comes to asking for a business case. We need to know what to ask for first.

The question for the business case for open PSI is sure to arise. My intuition is it will arise primarily as a way to slow the opening up of government down. Especially where there is no political driving force behind open PSI, no leadership on the issue. This is the case in the Netherlands for instance, as well as Denmark, and unlike the UK where the prime minister went on record to say 'let's do it'.

Business cases as means of obstruction

The management instrument business case has a long history of being abused to stop change. Because nobody can really object to the reasonable question to show how necessary investment will bring benefits, it is easily deployed as a means of obstruction in those situations where you know there is probably no clear cut answer to be given up front. At least not phrased in a way that satisfies those asking for a business case.

This because of the assumptions often silently underlying such a request for a business case:

• There is a generic ROI regardless of context;
• The investment is a one-off decision, never a journey of exploration. In other words, it has to be all or nothing.
• It is possible to know all possible returns in advance;
• It is possible to realistically separate costs of investment from your other costs;
• It is possible to reliably calculate the size of each of the possible returns;
• It is possible to reliably list all relevant risks and quantify them;
• We know the exact causal paths from investment to returns;
• The investment needs to create its own return entirely, i.e. it is its own goal and a stand alone thing;
• If anyone of the above items cannot be met, it makes sense to say 'no';
• It is more preferable to pass up on opportunity and do nothing than run the risk of failure. When you don't invest, there's no risk of having to explain disappointing returns or the absence of returns.

Detecting obstruction

It's not that I think business cases are useless per se. If there's a clear cut investment in a specific context and in a specific process, with clear connections to your organizational goals, trying to achieve a well defined (and contained) result, a business case makes a lot of sense. To see how specifically you think a certain action will contribute to your goals, and what the likely factors are that come into play to make sure it will. Business cases make sense when you can ask a pertinent and detailed question. 'Show me the business case for open PSI' is not a pertinent and detailed question like that.

This is why asking 'show me the business case' in such a non-specific way for me is a red flag of obstruction. It is also a temporary thing, I'm sure. In the mid-nineties I was asked for 'the business case for email'. I never saw the answer, but the question soon never came up anymore either. In the past eight years I've been asked a lot for the business case for blogging, social media or web2.0. Those questions are now quickly disappearing as well. I am also sure the generic question for a business case for open PSI will simply disappear when someone in the Dutch government will take leadership on the issue. Because then obstruction means a cost to the person asking for the generic business case, and taking a risk in line with the leadership's view means you're covered as management.

Towards a useful open PSI business case

So can we make a useful business case for open PSI at all? Yes, we can. Should we make a business case for open PSI? Yes, we should, because it will help us as well to choose our actions more effectively.

We just have to realize we need to make the question for the business case more detailed and relevant for any particular government institution. While the PIRA study calculating an EU wide potential value of PSI of tens of billions of Euro's is interesting when seen on an EU scale, it means nothing to any particular government institution facing the decision to invest money to make it happen.

We also need to realize that real innovation, and complex environments such as our societies, bring with them different rules of engagement when it comes to management.

We need to see as well that the decision that we MUST open up our PSI has already been taken by the Dutch government, based on the EU PSI directive, and has been transposed into law. This means any business case needs to address what it is we WANT to do and how, and what is needed so we CAN do it.

In my next posting I will try and outline a template and/or checklist to help you build a business case for open PSI around 'want' and 'can', as related to both the list of assumptions above, as well as the list of possible benefits of PSI and stakeholders involved from the previous posting.

Public Administrations and public sector bodies generate, collect and process a large amount of information that can be re-used for commercial or non commercial purposes.

The private sector can make use of this opportunity to generate benefits by creating new value-added services and products based on public sector information. In this same way, citizens and not-for-profit organizations can re-use public sector information and design new services and applications for their specific needs and interests.

In addition, the re-use of public sector information offers the citizenship the chance to improve their level of information and knowledge on public institutions’ activities, turning them into more transparent and accessible institutions.

In this context, in recent years a new culture of re-use is growing increasingly stronger and has led to the birth and consolidation of civil society platforms that are tapping the social value potential of public sector information.

As good examples of these civil society platforms, we may mention, inter alia, projects like "MySociety.org” in the United Kingdom, the German association "OpenData Network", France's "Libertic" or, in Spain, the Association for the Promotion and Dissemination of Public Resources "Pro Bono Publico", whose main objective is the promotion of PSI re-use benefits.

Pro Bono Publico is taking different innovative actions and, in a very short time, has contributed to an increased interest on PSI re-use in social networks like Twitter. Among these activities the parlio.org initiative is worth a special mention – it consists in a free software tool that develops applications based on information from the Basque Parliament. Another Pro Bono initiative is the competition "AbreDatos Challenge 2010", in which participants compete to design the best citizen service based on PSI in a maximum time of 48 hours. During the 17th and 18th April, contest participants, grouped into teams of up to four people, will need all their inventiveness to develop an application based on PSI reuse.

In short: citizens' initiatives such as Pro Bono, whose aim is to promote the culture of openness and re-use of public sector information, play an essential role in raising the awareness of citizens, private sector and public administrations regarding the benefits of PSI reuse in Spain.

The Spanish Presidency of the European Union, in collaboration with the European Commission and ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), organized in La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia, Spain) during the 15^th and 16^th March the V European Union (EU) - Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Ministerial Forum on the Information Society, entitled "Digital Content for a Digital Society".

As its main objective, the forum served to facilitate the exchange of experiences, perspectives and objectives of Information Society public policies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nowadays, Information Society policies are in a crucial moment, since both, the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean, are designing new plans in this area, namely the European “Granada Strategy” and the Latin “eLAC2010”. In this context, the participants of the forum looked through the recent public policies in this field and discussed the needs and priorities for future digital programmes, in order to, take into account of the specificities of each region, reduce the digital divide and foster economic growth.

The conclusions of the meeting were adopted by the Ministers and heads of delegations as the “Declaration of La Granja”. This Declaration emphasizes the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in driving productivity and economic growth, the management of scarce resources and the creation of stable employment and recognizes the urgent need to reduce the digital divide and to help developing countries to fully benefit from ICTs.

All participating countries agreed to highlight the value of ICT as a crucial element in guaranteeing welfare and quality of life in different areas such as education, culture, healthcare, e-government, work, energy and environmental issues. In this context, during the Forum it was pointed out that the public authorities are required to respond in a dynamic way to the new demands, to promote investment and innovation, to guarantee citizens’ rights to enjoying the benefits of the digital age, to ensure the security and privacy on the network and to protect digital content creators’ rights.

In this sense, the Declaration of La Granja establishes the need to move towards universal broadband access and a dynamic regulation that encourages investment and innovation as some of the most significant policy objectives. It also notes the shared responsibility of governments, private sector and civil society in promoting actions to foster online safety and protect privacy. In addition, the text highlights the growing value of digital content and the opportunities the Internet provides to its users to create and distribute digital content and new services.

Moreover, the text calls upon public authorities to increase their use of ICTs so as to provide a better service to citizens and to enhance openness and transparency, thus promoting the participation of citizens in public life. In particular, the text of the Declaration emphasizes the benefits of the Internet and the web 2.0 for Administrations, users and the private sector.

The Declaration also mentions the need for governments and governmental entities to stimulate openness and access to public data, in order to promote its re-use and to enable the creation of new services for citizens and businesses. The text also encourages public authorities to make reusable information available to citizens and businesses in an easily accessible form.

Consequently, the Declaration of La Granja establishes the promotion of public sector information re-use and, more specifically, the need to improve the availability of public information by electronic means and accessible formats, as a shared political objective of the EU, Latin America and the Caribbean, hence, endorsing a priority promoted, among others, by the Aporta Project since its inception.

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).

The Locus Association recently submitted its response to the UK’s Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) consultation on Ordnance Survey, and thought readers of this blog might be interested to see a synopsis of our submission. The Consultation closes on 17 March, so there’s still a bit of time to get your own views in, if you haven’t already done so.

First, Locus is very pleased to see this Consultation taking place, since we have been concerned for some time that the plan for Ordnance Survey introduced in October 2008 was not appropriate for a number of reasons, which we detail in our full submission document. However, we do still have concerns about the way in which this process has been conducted, and about some of the comments and assumptions in the Consultation Document.

As those familiar with the OS consultation will know, the document that details the UK government’s proposals for OS’s future offers three suggested policy Options for the way ahead (please see http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/ordnancesurveyconsultation) for a copy of the consultation document). In general, most Locus members believe that the proposals offered in the Consultation Document have been designed to perpetuate Ordnance Survey’s dominance of the UK GI market, rather than to create a more open and fair environment for all players.

Several statements/assumptions in the report are of significant concern, including:

• Ordnance Survey does not understand or seek to account for its true costs on a product basis;
• There is confusion around the concepts of product and service/delivery mechanism;
• The need for some form of regulation is underestimated and dismissed;
• There is a lack of appreciation of the conflicts of interest that exist when OS is both a competitor and a supplier of base data; and
• There is an assumption that OS data is better and more current than data that could be provided by the private sector if there were a level playing field.

Locus does not consider any one of the three Options offered in the Consultation Document to be ideal; our preferred way forward for OS would include the following actions/points:

• First define Ordnance Survey’s Public Task.
• Provide free access to all unrefined data that government requires; this would likely include Addressing and Boundary data. These datasets should be definitive and authoritative if at all possible.
• Where mapping and refined products/services are chargeable the market should be fair and competitive.
• There must be full structural and accounting separation between an OS DataCo and ProductCo or unrefined/refined business.
• Locus is supportive of recent discussions to change the OS licensing model, as outlined in the Consultation document and in previous OPSI communications, and believes that work on these changes should continue whichever model is chosen:

- rationalisation of specific use contracts;

- simplified and shortened licences;

- some price reductions; and

- less restrictive licences (especially in relation to derived data).

• OS should not continue to have a price advantage over its channel when dealing with government as customers. Government should ensure that tendering for supply contracts is fair and does not advantage OS.

The specific views of the majority of Locus members on the Consultation and its proposals are as follows:

• Locus supports several of the policy drivers behind this Consultation: We agree that location is increasingly important and that it should be easier to get hold of government-held Core Reference Data (CRD), meaning data that has to be created as part of OS’s (and other government entities’) Public Task. Examples of CRD are Boundaries, Street Names, Road Traffic Layouts, Planning Consents. We also agree that government should work to coordinate its information requirements and not duplicate work.
• Government must also be able to transfer the data it needs between central/local government without hindrance.
• Locus believes Natural Government monopoly data should be made available as PSI. However, Locus’s majority view is that any data that will be made available free of charge must pass a “genuine government monopoly” test first. Without this test, government runs the risk of making the taxpayer fund the creation of data or products which would otherwise be created by the private sector in a normal competitive market.
• Locus strongly supports the proposal for the creation of not only a single National Address Register, but also a single National Postcode Register, both of which would be provided as free PSI. We recognise that the creation of these registers would require collaboration between a number of organisations and departments (particularly Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, Local Authorities), but consider it essential that government find a way through the current licensing barriers and ownership issues.
• Refined products and services should not be provided free of charge/should not be subsidised by Government. Locus has grave concerns about the inclusion of any type of “service”, such as access delivery, or a mapping API, as part of any OS Free option, because:

- It would undermine the existing OS Partner channel;

- It would create additional costs for OS and government;

- Such services go well beyond anything that should be considered part of OS’s public task.

• Whatever data is released for free, if any, government must satisfy itself that Ordnance Survey is creating data and products cost effectively; any new products or product adaptations should be competed to ensure government receives value for money. This should be considered as part of each review of the OS Public Task.
• We do not believe that Government should commit any funding for products that are not explicitly part of the Ordnance Survey Public Task (which must first be defined). Any funding would inevitably provide Ordnance Survey with a competitive advantage over alternative suppliers, and also prevents new players from entering and investing in the market.
• If OS is to charge for the use of any data or compete with commercial entities in any way, then fully separate accounting and structural separation for OS divisions is essential. This is consistent with the PSI regulations, which say that PSIHs should separate clearly and fairly commercial activities from data collection activities. The lack of structural separation leaves the door open to cross-subsidization and anti-competitive trading by PSIHs.
• Locus is concerned that there is only one mention of Derived Data in the Consultation. In our view, one of the most important reforms that should come out of this Consultation is the removal of the Derived/Associated Data restrictions that currently exist (and this must also apply retrospectively for derived data created in the past). This is a key issue for our members and many other users of OS data and products. Our view is that while no one should be able to re-engineer OS maps from Derived Data, users should be able to retain and continue to use their own data derived from OS maps without paying OS additional license fees.
• There is a definitely a need for a regulatory body with teeth to ensure that there is fair competition. Although the Consultation appears to reject any form of regulation of OS beyond the IFTS rules, Locus believes this is not sufficient. There are a number of ways in which stronger regulation can and should be introduced without incurring high costs.
• We strongly agree with the Consultation document that markets must be free and fair. However, many parties in this PSI sector believe that it is impossible to have fair competition between the private sector and government entities, because the government entity will always have an unfair advantage.
• Further, we do not agree that government should be pushing to put OS at the heart of the value chain, or at the heart of growth in the GI sector. We are supportive of a policy that places government-created or public sector GI data (and wide, straightforward availability of that data) at the heart of growth in the UK GI sector. We do not believe government should attempt to distort the market by favouring one provider over others.
• Whatever the outcome of the Consultation, there must be flexibility in the way policy evolves so there is not upheaval every few years over discussions on OS’s future; we all need certainty so we can plan for the future.

Again, if you have views on Ordnance Survey, please do ensure that you put in your own submission before the deadline of 17 March. Locus will contribute another blog here once the government publishes its plans for OS, which should be prior to the upcoming election in May.

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.

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