The European Commission brochure Exploiting the potential of Europe’s public sector information sets out on page 8 under What does the directive prescribe?

The directive is built around two key pillars of the internal market: transparencyand fair competition. It contains rules on the following aspects: and goes onto detail eight rules one of which states:

- Transparency of conditions applicable to re-use. Charges and other conditions have to be pre-established and published. It also has to be clear where applicants can complain about decisions that affect them.

Within the UK secondary legislation was used to transpose the PSI Directive and was published on the 10th June 2005. Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 1515 The Re-use of Public Sector information Regulations 2005 came into force within the UK on the 1st July 2005 as is known as the PSI Regulations 2005.

A survey was undertaken within the UK during April 2006 to measure compliance with the PSI Regulations at the end of month 9 – 31st March 2006. The objective of the survey was to assess transparency of the PSI Regulations within local government. With the emphasis on eGovernment the medium for publication chosen to assess transparency was local government web sites.

A local government body may well have complied with the transparency rule referred to above but how easy is it for a potential re-user of public sector information to locate the information on the public bodies web site?

The question above provides the framework for the survey.

Although the survey showed that the number of local government bodies complying with the PSI Regulations was disappointingly low within the UK it nevertheless brought out some interesting aspects related to: - web design; - relationship to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 implementation; - whether a PSI Reuse icon would assist?- Content management on the web site and whether the information available is consistent and aligned.

These aspects and others will be considered further by the ePSIplus Thematic Network