“EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (Report)

This report presents the finding of a study undertaken in 2007 by the Centre of Land Policy and Valuations of the Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya on the socio-economic impact of the spatial data infrastructure (SDI) of Catalonia. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission commissioned the study and recommended the methodology.

The study is based on a sample of 20 local authorities participating in the Catalan SDI (IDEC) together with 3 control local authorities not participating in the SDI, and 15 end-user organisations, of which 12 are private companies operating in the Geographic Information (GI) sector, and 3 are large institutional users of GI. The findings of the interviews were presented in two separate workshops to the participating local authorities and end-user organisations, to validate the findings and discuss the outcomes. The key findings are reported below.

Costs: The total direct cost of establishing and operating the IDEC over a five year period (2002-06) was of €1.5 million, of which €325,000 for each of the first two years (2002-03) necessary to launch the SDI, and €283,000 per annum to operate and develop the infrastructure in the three subsequent years (2004-06). Human resources represented 76% of the costs during the launch period (the rest being capital investment), and 91% during operation. These costs do not include the creation and updating of topographic data, which is under the responsibility of the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia (ICC), and would happen regardless of the development of the SDI, nor the indirect costs associated with the physical and technological infrastructure (e.g. office space) provided by the ICC. They do include the following: metadata creation and maintenance, development of geo-services (including geoportal, catalogue, Web Map Service client), preparation of data for publication, applications, hardware and software, and management.

Benefits: The evidence collected for 2006 clearly shows that the main benefits of the IDEC accrue at the level of local public administration through internal efficiency benefits (time saved in internal queries by technical staff, time saved in attending queries by the public, time saved in internal processes) and effectiveness benefits (time saved by the public and by companies in dealing with public administration). Extrapolating the detailed findings from 20 local authorities to the 100 that participate in the IDEC, the study estimated that the internal efficiency benefits account for over 500 hours per month. Using an hourly rate of €30 for technical staff in local government, these savings exceed €2.6 million per year. Effectiveness savings are just as large at another 500 hours per month. Even considering only the efficiency benefits for 2006 (i.e. ignoring those that may have accrued in 2004-05, as well as the effectiveness benefits), the study indicates that the total investment to set up the IDEC and develop it over a four year period (2002-05) is recovered in just over 6 months. Wider socio-economic benefits have also been identified but not quantified. In particular, the study indicates that web-based spatial services allow smaller local authorities to narrow the digital divide with larger ones in the provision of services to citizens and companies.

In addition to evaluating the socio-economic impact of the SDI in Catalonia, the study reflects on the indicators used for the study and the limitations encountered in collecting the necessary information, with suggestions for future work in this important field of research.”