London: 2 June 2009

The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has published the minutes of the Office of Fair Trading Board Meeting that was held on Wednesday 1 April 2009. Item 4 of the minutes refers to the Ordnance Survey and states:

“Item 4: Ordnance Survey

The OFT published its market study on the commercial use of public information (CUPI) in 2006. This estimated that greater commercial exploitation of information assets held by the public sector could generate £500m of additional value for the UK economy. One of the key concerns outlined in the CUPI report was that some public sector bodies hold effective monopolies in certain types of valuable information (for example, mapping data), and that it can be difficult for third parties to access this information for commercial reuse. In the report we outlined particular concerns in relation to some government Trading Funds, notably Ordnance Survey (OS), including:

• Outright refusal to license its information for certain uses that overlap or are similar to current OS products
• Discrimination between its partner licence terms and its internal freedom to exploit its data, and
• Potential margin squeeze, where the upstream part of the business may be bearing a disproportionate amount of the costs of the business, with no internal transfer pricing for data.

The team explained the work that had been done since the report. In particular, despite significant investment by the OFT throughout the CUPI study and following its publication (engaging with OS, potential competitors, the Shareholder Executive and sitting on the steering group) it seems that the proposals made as a result of the OFT study will not be fully acted upon. On the basis of the limited information we have been given by OS, we believe they will not adequately address these concerns.

The team updated the content of the Board paper following discussions held in the past week with the Shareholder Executive. The Shareholder Executive has asked the OFT to play a monitoring role over OS and 'hold it to account'.

The Board was invited to consider the risks and options for next steps, including the possibility of a market investigation reference to the CC. The decision on how to take the issue forward will be taken at Executive level.”

The Competition Commission (CC) is an independent public body which conducts in-depth inquiries into mergers, markets and the regulation of the major regulated industries.

The UK Guardian newspaper Free Our Data campaign has highlighted the lack of transparency that exists around the UK Governments announcement regarding the Ordnance Survey and the one sided view being emanated by the Ordnance Survey video.

The UK Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI) has published its response to the consultation on the Ordnance Survey and the APPSI submission also refers to the OFT CUPI report and the contradictions that exist in UK government policy with respect to public sector information.

The UK Association for Geographic Information (AGI) has published its response to the consultation on the Ordnance Survey. Although the AGI makes no reference to the OFT CUPI report it does raise a number of times the issue of down stream competition and seeks clarification!

The pan European PSI Alliance also reflects the UK LOCUS Associations concerns that also refer to the OFT CUPI report.

Related news topics

Commercial use of public information