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Audio Recorded Live at the AGI Showcase Event in York. For details of more AGI Events, visit our website: www.agi.org.uk
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The Great Data Robbery
and what we can do about it
Dr Robert Barr OBEManchester Geomatics, ODUG and University of Liverpool
AGI Showcase North – FERA 14th November 2013
manchester.geomatics THEORY INTO PRACTICE
Where I’m going…..
• Addresses a public good?• The legislative history• The slippery slope• The economic case • PAF in numbers• The Crown Jewels• The bad news• The guilty parties• So what’s to be done?
The slippery slope
• 1970s Marginal cost distribution of PAF on computer tapes• 1980s Low cost distribution on CD• 1990s AddressPoint pricing 100 x PAF per address• 2000s Local Government’s public private partnership with
Intelligent Addressing• 2000s Ordnance Survey £ 20m settlement with AA• ErnestMarples.com forced to close• 2010s Formation of GeoPlace as a for profit LLP• 2010s Royal Mail Pinpoint escapade• 2013 PAF SOLD TO PRIVATE SECTOR (weakly regulated)
PAF in numbers
• Records: approx. 28,000,000• Fields: approx. 30• Changes per annum: approx. 500,000 – 1 million• New build changes approx. 330,000• New build changes provided by LAs approx. 250,000• Payment to LA’s approx. £250,000 p.a.• Total claimed costs £ 24.5 million• Allowed profit 10%• Revenue approx. £ 27 million
OS in numbers
• Revenue (2012/13) £141.9 million• Profit before exceptional items £ 32.3 million• Operating cost £ 109.6 million
• Approximately 4.5 times the alleged cost of maintiaing and distributing PAF
• The size of the task:
Source: Vanessa Lawrence ‘Ordnance Survey: underpinning the decision-making of Great Britain’ 27th July 2013
Source: Vanessa Lawrence ‘Ordnance Survey: underpinning the decision-making of Great Britain’ 27th July 2013
ONS National Address Register in numbers:• Approximately 27 million dwelling addresses compiled
from cross matching NLPG, AddressPoint, PAF and VOA data against OS MasterMap
• Over 350 field staff ground-checked 15 % of addresses.• LAs asked to check an average of 500 addresses each• Results of census not challenged on address grounds.• Total cost approx. £10.5 million• File subject to data “sharing” agreement destroyed after
use• Copy of file “reverse-engineered” to improve OS
AddressBase
Bonkers!
• ShEx – The Shareholder Executive• Responsible for the publicly owned shares in Royal Mail
• Were aware of the misleading Telegraph story prior to flotation
• Informed the Telegraph that the numbers were wrong – but wouldn’t say what the right numbers might be
• Did not insist that the Telegraph print a correction
Conclusion
• Price of PAF is not “reasonable”• Royal Mail are engaging in price gouging under the
cloak of commercial confidentiality• A Public Sector Information asset has been privatised
for private gain• The public have been robbed of an asset, which is now
being held hostage to extract what is effectively a private tax on address usage.
• Geoplace LLP and Ordnance Survey are colluding in this activity – possibly with a view to future privatisation
So what is to be done?
• Persuade Royal Mail Group shareholders that the pain of hanging on to PAF will not be worth the gain
• Outline the commercial advantage to RMG of releasing PAF as Open Data
• Seek judicial review of Royal Mail’s compliance with the “reasonable clause” in 2000 and 2001 Postal Services Acts
• Ask for Office for Fair trading review of Royal Mail’s monopoly pricing
So what is to be done?
• Examine the status of the postcode data in current open datasets for commercial re-use:
• CodePoint Open• ONS Postcode directory• NROSH(National Register of Social Housing)• Land Registry price paid data• Companies House addresses• VAT Register
• Create an open Postcode Street concordance• Create additional tools to address and Postcode
Open Street Map
So what is to be done?
• Examine Royal Mail’s costs forensically to justify the cost of the public sector PAF Licence
• Could that funding be enough to incentivise an Open PAF?
• Examine the effect of Open Addressing elsewhere in the world
• Observe World Bank, UPU and UN addressing initiatives
• Maintain the pressure on Government • Make PAF An election issue!