Digital Britain: the role of OPSI!
During August 2009 the UK Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) published version 6 of the Digital Britain implementation plan.
The introduction to the paper states:
“Following Ministerial changes, this paper formally sets out the future governance arrangements and overall programme plan for the delivery of the actions contained in the Final Report.
This paper also sets out responsibility for delivery of the actions arising from Digital Britain. It does not set out timing around every item of the programme. Each work stream may proceed at a slightly different pace depending on the nature of the work, the need for consultation or legislation and the links to other work streams. In general, though, immediate or preparatory actions will be completed in the Summer or Autumn, with longer term projects stretching to 2012 or beyond.” (Reference page 2)
Page 25 of the paper describes Project 16: Digital Government, which includes the following statement:
“Government and the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), in consultation with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), will review progress with Ordnance Survey’s strategy on a regular, on-going basis, particularly over the next 6 to 12 months.”
The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain in response to a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request (Ordnance Survey reference: 71746) released a document from Transport for London (TfL) that had been submitted as part of the public consultation on the Ordnance Survey business strategy.
The Transport for London submission sets out a series of measured by which Project 16 could be measured. The TfL response makes the following opening statements:
“We are generally dissappointed in the scope of this consultation and regret that it is not more wide ranging TfL has major concerns with the issues of Derived Data which over-ride many of the items of this consultation
We do not think that OS has paid sufficient attention to its many Government customers and their Public Task
We regret the enormous cost in both time and resources that Government bodies have to spend on procurring OS data”
In response to Goal 1 - Promote innovation for economic benefit and social engagement, TfL responded:
“OS appears to wish to promote innovation by launching such services in house, experience suggests that this is not the best way and that they should concentrate on making their data freely available and allow the market to innovate.”
UK – PSI transparency courtesy of FOD & WikiLeaks
Ordnance Survey report operating profit of £16.3 million!
Regulator monitoring Ordnance Survey
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