International Public Information Environment

Public information policy development at international and country levels has been active. In North America the focus has been on updating all-of-government best practice information management statements, whereas, at the international level, the OECD and European Union (EU) have released access, use and re-use of public information recommendations or directives. Licensing of public information has been a priority in Australia. There are also campaigns for governments to open up access to their non-personal data. This international activity is summarised below.

Information Management

The US Federal Government sets out best practice advice for agencies, including minimising cost to the Federal Government, minimising the burden for citizens, maximising the utility of the information, and reducing paperwork¹³. The Canadian Federal Government regularly updates its information management advice for agencies¹⁴.

Coverage

The OECD and the EU define public sector information very broadly. The OECD's definition is "information, including information products and services, generated, created, collected, processed, preserved, maintained, disseminated, or funded by or for the Government or public institution"¹⁵. The EU list below illustrates the breadth of its coverage and also its expectations for external uptake of this information.

Access and Re-use

The OECD Council's Recommendation for Enhanced Access and More Effective Use of Public Sector Information¹⁶ and the OECD Policy Guidance for Digital Content¹⁷, adopted by OECD member countries in June 2008, cover access and re-use. These documents complement the EU's Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector Information¹⁸ (2003/98/EC, dated 17 November 2003).

They all open up, maximise access to and allow non-exclusive re-use of non-personal public sector information and digital content, and require this irrespective of a member country's funding model for developing and maintaining the information.

The United Kingdom leads the EU in implementing the Re-use Directive. This work is led by the Office of Public Sector Information¹⁹ which operates a mixed regime for charging and licensing re-use. Most material published on central government websites can be re-used free of charge under terms of a Click-use licence. The Information Fair Trader Scheme regulates trading activities of those parts of government which are designated as Trading Funds, such as the Ordnance Survey. The Information Asset Register lists government information assets, and work is underway investigating the combining of information and data using semantic web²⁰ technologies.

In the United Kingdom, the Power of Information report²¹ recommended an approach for the government to take up "opportunities that are emerging in terms of the creation, consumption and re-use of information". In response the Cabinet Office committed "to unlock the value of the information we collect on behalf of citizens; to deliver better public services; and to support world-class innovation that underpins a growing part of our knowledge economy."²² Other initiatives include a campaign for government to free up data²³, and mysociety.org²⁴, a project of the UK Citizens Online Democracy, which "builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives", for example, TheyWorkForYou.co.nz.

The Australian Federal Government is assessing the recommendations of the Venturous Australia; Review of the National Innovation System report. Recommendation 7.7 recommends a National Information Strategy to optimise the flow of information in the Australian economy. Its aim would be to:

• utilise the principles of targeted transparency and the development of auditable standards to maximise the flow of information in private markets about product quality
• maximise the flow of government generated information, research, and content for the benefit of users (including private sector re-sellers of information)²⁵.

Open access

There is increasing international demand for governments to provide data in readily usable or re-usable formats. A US Open Government Working Group, comprising 30 invited attendees from influential US organisations, has released a set of principles for open government data²⁶. In Canada, the Citizens for Open Access to Civic Information and Data group is advocating that all levels of government make 'civic' information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. They believe "this is necessary to allow citizens to fully participate in the democratic process of an "information society"²⁷.

Copyright and Licensing

The OECD and the EU require member countries to draw up licensing approaches which clarify copyright ownership and usage. The Queensland Government Information Licensing Framework, based on open access principles, is currently being tested within the statistical office in the Queensland Treasury²⁸, an information-centric, highly transactional operating central government environment.

Pricing and Funding

Both the OECD and the EU require transparent and consistent pricing which they anticipate will encourage competition.

Revenues to the UK Government from the sale and licensing of public sector information are around £340 million per year²⁹. The Ordnance Survey estimates³⁰ that public sector information underpins £100 billion per year of economic activity in the UK and the total market for public sector information stands at £590 million per year. Yet, direct revenues from UK public sector information are considered to be only a fraction of the wider value that this information creates.

In 2008 Cambridge University investigated the impact of adopting different models for the provision of public sector information by trading funds³¹. It examined the costs and benefits for society, and the effects on government revenue of different charging policies, ranging from profit maximisation through to zero cost. The UK Treasury has commissioned a further report to analyse the argument that the wider economy would benefit from making government-collected raw data free for re-use to see how this would affect some of the biggest trading funds, including the Ordnance Survey, Met Office, UK Hydrographic Office and the Land Registry³².

In the US, government data collection is funded with money from the general budget, appropriated by Congress. The private sector is encouraged to use raw content to create new information services at no more than the cost of dissemination and without any government copyright restrictions. Application of this by information intensive industries, particularly in the geographic information and environmental services sectors, have led to increased tax revenues³³.

Adoption of EU Directive

The EU is now reviewing progress made by its member countries in adopting its 2003 Directive 2003/98/EC³⁴. All 27 EU Member States have transposed the Directive into their legislation, and the ePSIplus programme has recommended³⁵ to the European Commission Directive 2008 Review group that it considers:

• independent channels for redress for re-users³⁶
• how to stop persistent discriminatory practices in the licensing of data
• the creation of a suitable set of standards, an infrastructure and an action plan which brings about steadily improving discovery of access to the full range of public sector information
• the creation of practical initiatives to create 'asset registries', or other public sector information infrastructures supporting re-use
• ways of stimulating the private sector to act
• an intensification of work to establish and disseminate the economic case for low or no charges conclusively.

Footnotes

¹³ US Coordination of Federal Information Policy Act; commonly known as the Paperwork Reduction Act. US Code Title 44, Chapter 35; Office of Management and Budget circular A-130

¹⁴ http://www.informationmanagement.gc.ca/links-liens_e.asp?catid=5&topid=32

¹⁵ http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/27/40826024.pdf

¹⁶ http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/27/40826024.pdf

¹⁷ http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/54/40895797.pdf

¹⁸ http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/directive/psi_directive_en.pdf

¹⁹ http://www.opsi.gov.uk/

²⁰ vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web

²¹ The Power of Information: An independent review by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg commissioned by the Cabinet Office http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/power_information%20pdf.ashx

²² The Government's Response to The Power of Information, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/power_information/power_information_response%20pdf.ashx

²³ http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/index.php

²⁴ http://www.mysociety.org/

²⁵ http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS_chapter%207.rtf

²⁶ http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/OpenDataPrinciples

²⁷ http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/514/473

²⁸ http://www.oesr.qld.gov.au/about-our-services/policy/gilf-project.shtml

²⁹ The Power of Information: An independent review by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/power_information%20pdf.ashx

³⁰ http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/aboutus/reports/oxera/index.html

³¹ Models of Public Sector Information Provision by Trading Funds. Cambridge University, February 26, 2008. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45136.pdf

³² http://www.shareholderexecutive.gov.uk/publications/pdf/tradingfunds250608terms.pdf

³³ http://www.weather.gov/sp/Borders_report.pdf

³⁴ http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/directive/psi_directive_en.pdf

³⁵ http://www.epsiplus.net/reports/epsiplus_recommendations_to_the_ec_s_2008_review_of_the_psi_re_use_directive

³⁶ In order to make a complaint about existing business arrangements with public sector bodies