Economic aspects of the collection, dissemination and integration of government's geospatial information

Foreword

There has in recent years been a significant change in the way in which governments world-wide have operated. This change has focused in part on seeking ever-greater effectiveness and efficiencies in the delivery of services to the citizens. Increasingly, Treasuries have tried to ensure that 'the user - rather than the taxpayer - pays' wherever only subsets of the total populace benefit from government activity. The change has been nearly simultaneous in countries as far apart as the UK, Canada and New Zealand.

Nowhere has this had a greater effect than in relation to the information which government collects. In the main, this is collected for the analysis of problems, the definition of policy and monitoring of the out-turn of policy implementation. Most data collected by government is geographically referenced i.e. it has included in it some description - whether it is latitude and longitude, place names, post codes or whatever - which permit one piece of information to be related to another. This type of geographical information is now often called 'geospatial' or spatial. Various estimates suggest that as much as 80% of information held by government exists in this form. The vast bulk of all geospatial data is collected by governments.

Some governments operate a charging policy based on recovering only the cost of copying this information whilst others seek to maximise their revenues by selling it even to their own component bodies. Those charged with selling information are faced with some novel problems because it has characteristics which differ somewhat from those of commodities like food or automobiles. The effects of introducing new technology to government data handling have also been substantial. It has facilitated collection, checking, dissemination and analysis of data - and of theft and disguising the provenance and form of the latter. Surprisingly little has been written on these problems, other than the 1990 book by Michel Didier on Utilité et valeur de l'information géographique and a number of papers by American authors. The latter operate in a very different context, where statutes dictate that federal (but not state) government information must be made available at the cost of copying or less.

This report grew directly out of a work programme which I agreed with my Minister after the (Prior Options) review of Ordnance Survey carried out in 1994/95. I came to realise that Ordnance Survey was operating with only anecdotal knowledge of what other parts of the UK government did and with an imperfect understanding of the economic theory to underpin our own pricing. As a result, I commissioned a short programme of work through a tender process. This was designed to aid the senior management of Ordnance Survey in meeting Ministerial objectives. Having read the consultants' report, however, and having seen a growth of interest elsewhere in such topics, it seemed sensible to publish it. My objective in doing this is to inform the debate begun by the UK Association for Geographic Information (AGI) on access to government information; the publication is fortuitously timed since the Intergovernmental Group on Geographic Information (IGGI) within the UK government has also been giving some thought to the issues raised by AGI.

Whilst this report has been produced by Coopers and Lybrand, both the consultants and Ordnance Survey are particularly grateful for the information and help given by staff in other government bodies.

David Rhind
Director General
Ordnance Survey