A government taskforce has issued a report that recommends 'urgent reform' of Ordnance Survey and quotes analysis by Cambridge University that the current licencing model is costing the UK economy millions of pounds.
The importance of geospatial data (digital maps) for public good and economic prosperity was identified by Steinberg and Mayo in 2007. However, for both innovators and the general public, the situation remains disappointingly unchanged. About one third of the entries to the Show Us A Better Way competition required geospatial data and provided a clear demonstration to the Taskforce of the importance of updating current policy on geospatial information. Various barriers exist to its use, particularly licensing, cost and timely availability.
The Ordnance Survey is fundamental to delivering the power of information for the economy and society. The Taskforce has contributed to the Government’s Trading Funds Assessment. This Assessment should be radical and fundamental.
Trading Funds
The Taskforce has been impressed by the extent to which access to geospatial data has been a recurrent theme during its activities. For example, the
Show Us A Better Way competition had around 500 entries and of these over one third were for ideas around maps and location. It is possible to speculate why this is: perhaps people want ‘government’ to present a simple, smart face based on location and service; perhaps they want to plan how to get to the hospital or the quickest route to school.
The Taskforce spent some time looking at the issue of
crime mapping which has excited much interest over recent months. We were struck that police forces such as the Met Police chose to implement a
service based upon GoogleMaps rather than any directly-sourced Ordnance Survey product. The Taskforce followed the
interesting debate that was generated around the use of data which has been ‘derived’ from Ordnance Survey maps.
Maps are an easy to understand way of
presenting complex information. However, until recently creating tools for presenting information on maps was very difficult and expensive to do. This is no longer the case, e.g.
Flowing data. Since around the time of the launch of online mapping services such as Multimap and Google maps with subsequent opening of
APIs for easy reuse there has been a steady decline in the complexity and cost of development. It is now possible for people to create
innovative mapping services in their spare time on a cheap laptop. This should be a tremendous spur for innovation in the UK.
In the
Ordnance Survey the British Public have very high quality maps with universal coverage and rapid incorporation of changes but there seemed to be an unusual number of barriers to society and the economy making the best use of this service. There is a high demand for map-based public sector information services. But the complex and legalistic licensing and charging regime offered by the Ordnance Survey is acting as a barrier, both real and perceived, to innovation in this area.
The importance of the information held by the trading funds has been highlighted repeatedly over the years. This has been reinforced in recent times by e.g. in the original Power of Information report, the Government’s
Location Strategy, the work of
APPSI, the OFT
CUPI study and a report by
Cambridge economists commissioned by the Treasury.
Research by Oxera for the Ordnance Survey suggests that their information alone underpins 12-20% of economic activity. While the points in this section can generalise to all government information businesses e.g other trading funds or the
Environment Agency, both the scale of the prize and the behaviour change needed create a focus on Ordnance Survey.
However, the current access regime is aimed at maximising the average return on capital for a single data business, not the overall welfare of the UK. Economic theory generally holds that maximum welfare is generated from charging at marginal cost, but the Ordnance Survey charges out at average cost as part of its Trading Fund approach. Analysis by Cambridge University suggests that current pricing directly reduces the size of the UK economy by £190m a year, in a sector that has been growing at an average rate of 9% a year. If the impact found by Oxera is true then this figure will be much higher.
The taskforce judges that the charging and licencing regime stifles innovation in public service delivery and economic activity.
- Who runs local services - The ability to discover easily administrative boundaries is essential for democracy. At present these are held by the Ordnance Survey and cannot be presented free at the point of use to the public in a form they can reuse. For example, despite the fact that electoral areas are set down in statute, the Ordnance Survey hold the copyright to displaying the regions on a map.
- Finding public services - Bulk information about schools has recently been made available. It does not contain precise locations provided to the Ordnance Survey by the schools because of percieved problems with licencing.
- Crime Mapping - Crime Maps were announced by the Home Secretary in the July 2007 Crime Strategy. Inspired by the Taskforce’s crime map mock ups, some forces were looking at a Google Maps interface. Ordnance Survey claimed that this would breach their licence but don’t (at date of writing) allow public sector use of Openspace.
- Census information - The census provides high quality local information. Despite the census areas being original work, licencing concerns have stopped the ONS providing an online geospatial interface to their data
- Local Authority information - one large local authority expressed bewilderment to the Task Force that the location data for its own street furniture seemed to be owned by the Ordnance Survey. The Ordnance Survey often claims derived copyright in public service locations, often despite the original information coming from other public bodies.
This is not new analysis. The importance of geospatial data was identified by Steinberg and Mayo in 2007 but for users, the situation remains unchanged. There is now a pressing need for reform at the Ordnance Survey. Shareholder Executive and HM Treasury are currently undertaking a
review of the trading fund business model. This should seize the opportunity to recast the Ordnance Survey as a mapping agency for the 21st Century. Technological advances have shifted the fundamentals of the traditional Ordnance Survey business model and there is a real risk that it will find itself an anachronism by
open rivals supported by
technological change.
It is the Taskforce’s view that the Ordnance Survey requires urgent reform. Recent
announcements of cost reductions at the Ordnance Survey point the way to wider reforms. This reform should include at a minimum:
- Basic geographic data such as electoral and administrative boundaries, the location of public buildings, etc should be available free of charge to all.
- There should be simple, free access to general mapping and address data for modest levels of use by any user
- Voluntary and community organisations pursuing public policy objects should benefit from straightforward standard provisions for ensuring access to geospatial data at all levels of use
- Licensing conditions should be simplified and standardised across the board and, for all but the heaviest levels of use, should be on standard terms and conditions and should not depend on the intended use or the intended business model of the user.
- The OpenSpace API, similar to but currently a constrained version of Google Maps should become the primary delivery point for the Ordnance Survey’s services
