Memorandum by the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
The CLG Select Committee follow up inquiry focuses
on four areas:
1. The distinction between Ordnance
Survey's role as a public information holder and a commercially
operating organisation
2. The regulatory regime for the provision
of public service information
3. The ending of the National Interest
Mapping Services Agreement
4. Role of the Geographic Information
Panel.
The submission from Defra relates to items 1
and 3 and illustrates issues faced by Defra and its wider "Network"
of Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies. This evidence
is submitted to the Committee to help establish whether the current
role of OS is having an impact on data sharing, to ensure that
Defra can anticipate any challenges ahead in implementing the
INSPIRE Directive[46]
and to help find solutions to these constraints.
INSPIRE DIRECTIVE
Defra and OS have enjoyed a close working relationship
throughout the recent negotiations on INSPIRE. However, the Defra
Network also experiences difficulties in sharing data derived
from OS mapping with our wider delivery partners.
Defra co-ordinated and maintained the UK government
position for INSPIRE. Officials worked closely with OS to safeguard
the interests of Trading Funds. The EC starting point in negotiations
had been that no charges should be allowed for licensing of data
between public sector organisations.
However, the Directive will require license
terms and conditions for geographic data to be consistent across
Europe and consistent with the objectives of the Directive, which
are to support sharing and re-use of environmental data.
OS mapping underpins a wide range of Defra Network
activities including, for example, the administration of farming
subsidy payments and the management of animal disease outbreaks.
We also need to share data derived from OS mapping
with our wider delivery partners, non-government organisations
and the public. OS licence terms and conditions can constrain
our ability to share this information. It is our understanding
that these difficulties arise at least in part from the dual role
of OS as a public information holder and a commercially operating
organisation, which is a specific area of interest for the Committee.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN
ORDNANCE SURVEY'S
ROLE AS
A PUBLIC
INFORMATION HOLDER
AND A
COMMERCIALLY OPERATING
ORGANISATION
The Defra Network licenses OS mapping through
the CLG-led Pan-Government Agreement (PGA). Restrictions surrounding
the use of OS mapping can have an impact on our business operations,
primarily through constraining our ability to share information
derived from OS mapping. These restrictions may also have an impact
on the obligations to share data that will arise from the INSPIRE
Directive.
It is our understanding from discussions with
OS that their position as a dominant public sector supplier of
information introduces a high risk that government activities
using its mapping may be deemed to compete with the private sector.
This risk then restricts the sharing of information
derived from OS mapping that could be viewed as a substitute (or
partial substitute) for the mapping from which the information
was derived.
However, other constraints are also introduced
to protect Crown Copyright interests or for revenue protection.
The combination of these different factors makes it difficult
to identify a straightforward solution to enable the sharing of
derived information, and this played a significant part in the
failure to re-procure the PGA in 2006.
We need to better understand which constraints
arise as a result of the OS dual role and get the right balance
between sharing and reuse of information and the trading of public
sector information. Ideally this would enable government to share
information derived from OS mapping in pursuit of their core business
activities and would be manifested through in simpler licensing
and charging procedures for sharing derived data.
The following examples of the difficulties in
sharing derived data faced by the Defra Network illustrate the
current concerns and challenges that will need to be overcome
through implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. A key question
is therefore whether the dominant position of OS in the market
place will have an impact on the ability of OS to comply with
the requirements of the Directive?
1. Submission of environmental boundary information
to the European Environment Agency
Defra (with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee)
recently co-ordinated the submission of boundary data to the European
Environment Agency (EEA) from England, Scotland and Wales. These
boundaries include Sites of Special Scientific Interest and National
Nature Reserves and were derived from OS mapping. Although the
boundaries themselves could not be used as a substitute for OS
mapping, OS apply restrictions with regard to the onward use of
such derived information.
UK Government bodies share environmental boundary
data as widely as possible with third parties to ensure there
is the broadest possible awareness of the designation. The PGA
licence requires that a recipient must agree to the terms of a
"derived data licence agreement" before accessing it.
This agreement mainly seeks to restrict onward commercial use
of the data (for which a royalty would be payable). However, in
this case, the need for recipients to agree to these terms has
meant that onward distribution of the data around Europe has been
restricted.
The EEA has created a portal by which citizens
in member states can view and download environmental designation
data for different countries. As a result of the OS requirement,
UK data has only been made available to view, not to download.
The complexities of presenting the licence agreement on the EEA
portal for third parties ruled out a download facility. Instead,
third parties (including, for example, the United Nations) are
separately directed to the relevant bodies in the UK to access
that data. The UK now stands out in Europe as restricting access
to its data.
2. Restrictions on sharing the Land Cover
Map with Defra partner organisations
The Land Cover Map (LCM) is a collaborative
project funded by Defra and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
The latest iteration of the project (LCM2007) proposes the creation
of a new land cover map derived from MasterMap (a digital mapping
product sold by the OS) together with earth observation and other
ancillary information. The main business driver for Defra's involvement
in this project has been the need to share land cover information
with Defra partner organisations (including the European Environment
Agency (EEA) as mentioned in "example 1" above).
Defra has shared a previous incarnation of the
LCM with partner organisations. Our position is that the LCM itself
cannot be used as a substitute for MasterMap, as it has been created
through a process of simplification and combination with other
information.
OS supported successful pilot studies of this
approach to create an updated version of the LCM (2007). However,
OS do not agree with our position that LCM cannot be used as a
substitute for MasterMap and distribution is therefore restricted.
Royalty free access is only available to organisations already
licensed to use the MasterMap product. This undermines Defra's
business case for continued investment in the LCM given that the
objectives it was designed to satisfy are difficult to reach as
a result.
3. "Open Country" and "Registered
Common Land' information
Natural England (NE) has also faced difficulties
in distributing boundaries of Open Country and Registered Common
Land to third parties. This information has also been derived
from MasterMap. Again, because OS consider that information from
mapping can be used as a substitute for the product from which
that information was derived, NE were prevented from distributing
the information to organisations not licensed to use MasterMap.
A compromise was agreed with OS whereby the
derived information could be merged with additional information
and the internal boundaries removed. However, this was far from
ideal.
The cost of licensing MasterMap means it is
prohibitively expensive for most of the smaller or non-government
organisations that the Defra "Network" wishes to share
derived information with.
ENDING OF
THE NATIONAL
INTEREST MAPPING
SERVICES AGREEMENT
Maintaining currency of mapping in Rural and Moorland
areas
The National Interest Mapping Services Agreement
(NIMSA) provided funds for OS to undertake activities which were
in the national interest, but which do not generate
revenue. This included the updating of rural and moorland
areas. As a result of the ending of NIMSA funding, the revision
of mapping in such areas may become less frequent.
Defra discussed the impact of the loss of NIMSA
funding with CLG during the consultation period when removal of
the funding was proposed. The Defra Network expressed a strong
interest in ensuring that OS mapping is maintained in rural, moorland
and coastal areas, as the lengthening of revision cycles means
that essential business activities will increasingly rely on out
of date information.
It would be helpful to now understand what the
impact of removing NIMSA funding has generally been on OS mapping
update cycles and specifically on the updating of rural and moorland
maps and OS Address data in rural areas?
Our original response to the CLG consultation
mentioned that in some instances the Defra Network may increasingly
have more up to date information than OS on some rural boundaries,
and there may be the potential for data sharing? This has not
been explored further.
Defra also expressed strong support for the
24-hour emergency mapping helpline that is funded by NIMSA, which
has been continued.
46 INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information
in the Community) is a European Commission Directive that was
adopted in May 2007 to improve the interoperability of spatial
information across the European Union at a local, regional, national
level. Back
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