Bristol: March 2010

Dr Pauline A. Pollard has kindly given the European Public Sector Information Platform permission to publish her Doctorate Thesis titled: Co-ordinating the sharing of spatial data in the UK. Dr. Pollard’s thesis using as an illustration the attempts to create a definitive Address Register in the UK demonstrates how the UK Government contradictory policies on information sharing and information trading have held back the UK with respect to the creation of a national definitive address data set. Recent UK Government announcements with respect to the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and the 2011 Census illustrate that the contradictions persist to the detriment of UK Society.

The thesis abstract states:

“This thesis is concerned with the sharing of geographic information in the UK focusing on the development of a definitive address dataset as a key information resource. It provides an interpretive longitudinal in-depth case study approach based on Walsham (1993) using direct observation, interviews and documents as sources of evidence. It tells an actor-centred story of the development of national address datasets since the early 1990s, placing this within the wider context of European, UK, regional and local public sector information policy.“

The thesis states (Reference pages 216 and 227 to 228)

“7.8 Conclusion

The thesis demonstrates an association between the information trading paradigm (which values ICTs for their automating potential) the provider institutions that seek to control ICTs, and the ICTs which reinforce the provider interest creating inflexibility in reorienting to the information age. This is combined with an inability of the institutional order to free itself from this contradiction between information sharing and information trading.”

“8.6 Conclusion

This thesis has told the story of the efforts of network actors to develop a single spatial address holding for information age government first conceived of by the central and local government policy communities in the 1970s yet still not available. It illustrates how conceptually simple and apparently neutral address information raises issues of power and control within intergovernmental relations because it is a key resource. The analysis has focused on the institutionalised processes that shape information holdings, to explain why, despite the radical implications of ICTs, change is gradual and institutionally shaped.

The story has aimed to show how actors (including local address custodians creating source data and European commissioners aiming to co-ordinate information sharing) are deeply engaged in these institutionalised processes. All human action carries within it the ‘seed of change’ (Walsham, 1993) and all actors contribute to the process of change by developing new discourses, networks and ICTs. At times, actions impact on the established way of doing things and lead to an institutionalised shift in direction, which can be hard to predict.”

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