Ordnance Survey supports launch of open geospatial data in Scotland
Saving organisations time and money
The new hub contains a range of valuable data for the nation, from local government and government organisations, stored in one central hub. The Spatial Hub, as the title suggests, is underpinned by location data, and supported by Ordnance Survey (OS) data and expertise.
Local authorities and partner organisations, including national park authorities, provide data to the Spatial Hub, where it’s compiled into standardised and up-to-date national datasets.
Now, thanks to funding from the Scottish Government, the Spatial Hub is available to everyone. This is hoped to help organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors save time and money, with a single source of accurate location data on everything from health, social care and transport, to energy, planning and the environment.
The availability of these Spatial Hub datasets will save organisations time and money, as they will no longer need to source this data from individual local authorities, while also helping to standardise and maintain the quality of the data used across a wide variety of sectors.
"OS has been a key partner of the Improvement Service for over 15 years and in that time, IS has helped us deliver significant products such as AddressBase and OS MasterMap Highways. More recently, we have been providing specialist knowledge and insight to support IS create and release accurate datasets that are critical for validation and quality assurance across the various functions of government. Location data is the golden thread that connects decision makers with the insight they need to see the bigger picture. We are excited to support the launch of this Local Government open data initiative that will not only enable access to a single source of geospatial datasets, but improve efficiencies for customers and support critical developments across the planning and environmental communities."
The Improvement Service is a member of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) along with the Scottish Local Authorities and other public sector organisations. The PSGA gives members access to OS expertise and location data for the public sector across Britain.
OS provided invaluable guidance to IS in support of the initiative, including paving the way for the developments through supporting the licensing position, which enabled the release of the suite of datasets under OGL terms.
The datasets are regularly updated and can be accessed through a state-of-the-art online platform which makes searching for and downloading data a simple process.
These datasets can be used in a variety of ways by a range of organisations and individuals. For example, local designations for nature, biodiversity, geodiversity and landscape are all vital environmental sources of information and form key elements of the planning process in Scotland, while school catchment area data, which shows the geographies relating to the enrolment of each local authority school, will be of keen interest to many wishing to buy a home.
To access the Spatial Hub visit – Welcome - Spatial Hub Scotland
Register your organisation for the PSGA
Public sector organisations can start making full use of OS data and services when they register for the PSGA
Our highly accurate geospatial data and printed maps help individuals, governments and companies to understand the world, both in Britain and overseas.
Products and solutions featured in this blog
AddressBase
AddressBase matches 29 million Royal Mail postal address to unique property reference numbers, bringing a new dimension to the matched records.
OS MasterMap Highways Network - Routing and Asset Management
OS MasterMap® Highways Network is the most complete, detailed and accurate navigable road network dataset for Great Britain.