Over the past decade a number of economic studies related to public sector information have been undertaken. Some studies have adopted a top down approach, others a bottom up approach and yet others a thematic approach. A number of the studies have also included comparisons with Countries outside of Europe. The European Union (EU) by its nature embraces 27 Member States and such comparisons are inherent when assessing the economic activity at the pan European level from the re-use of public sector information.

The information published by Eurostat demonstrates that the economies of the Member States within the Union vary. Other variations exist across Member States such as for example:

• The structure of the public sector;
• The public task of public sector information holders;
• Whether the information is held centrally by one public sector body or is held across a range of public sector bodies;
• The degree to which the public sector information is held electronically.

The question then arises as to whether these variations have an impact on the value added chain related to the re-use of public sector information? If the answer to this question is YES then is there a need to take this into consideration when establishing economic measurement indicators?

An interesting example of comparing value chains has been published in the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research under the heading Value of Geographic Information in November 2009. Assessing Geographic Information Enhancement, by Bastiaan van Loenen and Jaap Zevenbergen of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The paper develops a methodology for considering value adding within a value chain. The objective is to improve the understanding of the conclusions reached from economic studies undertaken on the re-use of public sector information especially when the studies have made comparisons across different jurisdictions. The methodology developed is then applied through a number of case studies that compare the value chain in three EU Member States with that in the USA.

One of the cases studies considered in the paper was that of the value chain related to Cadastral parcels the results of which are shown diagrammatically in Figures 7, 8 and 9 in the paper. The case studies show the difference between European Member States value chains with those of the value chains in the USA. In Europe the public sector Cadastral Institutes have undertaken many of the value added processes before the data becomes available for re-use where as in the USA these value added processes are provided by the private sector. In other words the data becomes available for re-use far earlier than it does in Europe. As a result one would then expect to see higher value adding processors in the value chain in Europe as the lower value adding processes have been undertaken by the public sector itself. The paper also refers to European Union activities such as the European Union Land Information Service (EULIS), which potentially enables a value chain comparison to be made between the Federal level of the USA with the European Union level.

The results of the Delft University research paper would indicate that there is a difference in the public task of each of the public sector bodies included in the case study. As a consequence this has an impact on the analysis of the results of economic measurements especially when making comparisons across different jurisdictions. The study would suggest that there maybe a need when determining the economic measurement indicators to take such variations into account. The variations may have different impacts for each thematic category of public sector information.

Views on the above and other questions and concerns related to measurement of PSI re-use economic activity would be very welcome.

If you would like to participate in round table public discussions on the PSI re-use value chains at the public meeting that will be held on the 8th June 2010 in Madrid then please contact the meeting co-ordinators (Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio, Spain (MITC) or ePSIplatform).