Further supplementary memorandum by Reuters
Ltd (Text taken from the e-mail of Ben Wilson (Public Affairs
Assistant) of 25 May)
One subject we mentioned in our initial written
evidence which we did not discuss last Wednesday is that of public
sector information—the largest potential resource of raw
material for the publishing sector. We outlined in our evidence
the benefits that a more liberal licensing regime for public sector
information would bring, and noted that this is a priority issue
in the eEurope initiative.
My colleague Henry Manisty recently wrote to
Lord Haskins of the Better Regulation Task Force in the wake of
the publication of the Task Force's report on "Helping Small
Firms Cope with Regulation". This report concluded that government
departments are failing to meet the requirements of small firms
for usable government content, and consequently SMEs struggle
to easily access government information and regulations relevant
to them. I attach Henry's letter to Lord Haskins FYI.
Lord Haskins has responded saying that he believes
there is a role for private sector publishers to play in the redissemination
to businesses of public sector information, and has copied the
correspondence to Patricia Hewitt in her capacity as Minister
for Small Business.
This is but one example of why the UK government's
approach to the issue of public sector information requires urgent
overhaul. We should be pleased to provide more background on this
important policy area if that would be helpful.
I am sending you the latest edition of Reuters
Global Regulatory Briefing[10]
which I produce on a weekly basis. The Briefing focusses on worldwide
regulatory developments of interest to Reuters—mainly e-commerce,
telecommunications, financial services and trade. Although it
is primarily intended for Reuters personnel around the world it
is also sent—free of charge—to a number of officials
in the UK Government and in the European Commission. Two articles
in the most recent edition, on the International Organisation
of Securities Commissions conference I mentioned last Wednesday
and on the European Commission's complaint to HMG about Oftel's
tardiness on dealing with interconnection complaints, are of particular
relevance to some of our comments last week, hence I thought this
issue might be of interest to you.
10 Not printed here. Back
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