That was 2011, onwards into 2012

There goes 2011 then and a welcome to 2012.  What can we expect?  Much was made in the recent Autumn Statement by The Chancellor of the Exchequer and from my employers’ point of view, the NHS Information Centre, 2012 will be a busy one, collecting and publishing increasing amounts of health “open data”.  There is a very welcome move to make data available at increasingly lower levels of granularity, excellent for health analysts and also those armchair analysts who have become so popular in modern press.  Take a look at GP practice level prescribing data now available.

Summary of Health datasets in the Autumn Statement

•  The Health and Social Care Information Centre will set up a secure data linkage service as part of its core delivery service, and by September 2012 will deliver data extracts, using linked data from primary and secondary care and other sources, on a routine basis at an unidentifiable, individual level. The service will be available to all users of health and care information and will operate on a self-financing basis where users would pay the cost of the linking process.
• Government will develop a programme with industry and academia, identifying specified datasets for open publication and linkage as well as championing emerging data-based innovations in health and life sciences.
• Practice level prescribing data at presentation level, giving quantity prescribed, will be made available by September 2012 – subject to further analysis of costs, benefits and affordability issues.
• Department of Health will work with Local Authorities to develop further Local Accounts in adult social care with the aim of ensuring the accounts provide citizens with relevant information in a way that allows comparison between councils.
• All patients in the NHS will have online access – where they wish it – to their personal GP records by the end of this Parliament (2015). GP practices that can already provide online access are encouraged to do so as soon as possible.
• GP reference data (e.g. locations of practices, their list sizes and demographics) will be made accessible, for free, by September 2013.
• NHS Choices will publish an interactive map at the earliest opportunity, subject to the successful passage of provisions in the Health and Social Care Bill relating to the powers of the Information Centre for Health and Social Care to require the supply of the necessary data.
• The Care Quality Commissioner’s Provider Profile Reports will be made accessible, for free, by September 2013.
• ‘Choose and Book’ usage at GP practice level will be made accessible, for free, by September 2013.

The NHS IC has recently launched a web site called the Indicator Portal which brings a range of health indicators together in one place.  Also worth a look would be National General Practice Profilesfrom APHO.

I think we can safely say that things are starting to happen.

Third party “information intermediaries” are beginning to sniff more expectantly around the health market.  Could this be because these companies have bled more traditional markets dry and are now looking to crack the nut which has so far eluded them?  I don’t have any problem with this.  Making open data available by innovative uses of new and emerging technology is a good thing.  When I ask analysts within the Health sector why they aren’t using GIS or GI or spatial analysis, they generally come back with the same answer, “Its too hard”.  Maybe so.  My plea to you private sector businesses setting your sights on health in 2012….make it simple.

Traditionally the use of GI within Health has been low but perhaps 2012 is the year we see it take off?  Perhaps it is still a bad time with all the turmoil still going on, but there must come a time when the time is NOW!  Who would have thought we would have a centrally funded Public Sector Mapping Agreement for England and Wales in 2011?  A great achievement.  December figures from Ordnance Survey shows 217 members fo the PSMA coming from the Health sector.  this is very nearly twice as many organisations who signed up to the NHS Digital Mapping Agreement.  It demonstrates the interest in geographical information within Health but also most of those organisations will need varying degrees of help with the data.  PSMA data is free but not totally free.  There is a big role for private industry.

2012 will see the high level governance body of the PSMA established.  The GI Group has been delayed due to a number of factors but plans are now in place, with identified individuals, to be approached early in 2012.  The GI User Group will be formally established in 2012 too with nominations from sector representatives being required early in the New Year.

There is a still a Public Sector PAF deal to do which is the only missing link in this PSMA adventure.  Ever the optimist, I am quite confident that one will be done.  Appropriate amounts of pressure and urgency has been applied to the relevant parties in Government, so lets wait and see.  Brief and crptic details appeared in the Open Data measures in the Autumn Statement document,

The Government has asked Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail to:
a. simplify and align their licence terms for development & testing
b. provide greater support and ease of access for developers & innovators.

The Government has also asked Ofcom, the new regulator of postal services, to review the pricing and licensing structure of the postcode address file (PAF).

So, its all there….

I have lobbied the Deaprtment of Health hard to make them realise the folly to not use stable, geographical building blocks in the creation of the new Clinical Commissioning Groups boundaries.  A seemless layer, build from Lower Level Super Output areas and constrained to a local authority boundaries has been my mantra for much of 2011 and it has worked.  The implications of these changes on those organisations who collect and publish health data hasn’t been worked through yet but 2012 will see that bottomed out.  Time series may be interesting as CCGs will not match the current PCT boundaries.

2012 will also see the Public Data Corporation or Public Data Group and Data Strategy Board develop.  This makes my head hurt so look elsewhere for the implications of this!

Thanks to all who I have met and chatted to over the year and lets look forward to a productive and exciting 2012.

Ambitious Proposals for the #harrogateheritageline

In response to this link “ex-underground train plan for Harrogate Line” which was published on the BBC North Yorkshire web site on Thursday 14th July I have put pen to paper and sent a letter to the Harrogate Advertiser, Andrew Jones MP, the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce and Northern Rail.

You can find lots to read here too “HARROGATE LINE – bid for “metro” trains! Proposed new scheme to electrify and upgrade the Harrogate Line“.  I just love the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce use of a single exclamation mark.  Speaks volumes to me.

start…….

CC :Brian Dunsby, Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce

CC :Andrew Jones MP

CC :Customer Relations, Northern Rail

 Dear Harrogate Advertiser,

I would like to take the opportunity, through your newspaper to comment on the headline which appeared in your edition of Friday 15th July 2011, “Bold vision to transform our trains”.

They are indeed “hugely ambitious” plans. I don’t think there is any doubt in this statement. The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce has a forward thinking vision, which I absolutely agree with and support. However, there is a difference between blatant media hype and the actual real situation on the ground. I strongly believe that this proposal to use former London Underground rolling stock and the installation of a 3rd rail power system is totally unrealistic. However, there still exist many problems on the Harrogate Line which need addressing.

The plans to add new stations and to run a turn up and go service is a brilliant suggestion. BUT… Where is the money coming from and who is going to build and maintain the infrastructure and where will the rolling stock be maintained? There is no 3rd rail connectivity to any local train depots. I would ask, where is the consultation with the current incumbents, Northern Rail and Network Rail?

How much is all this going to cost? Figures of £150m are knocking around. That is a great deal of money for a system where the only other comparable operation is on the Isle of Wight with 6 trains and 8 miles of line.

As a regular user of the Harrogate Line between Harrogate and Leeds and return at peak times the problems, as I see them, is that of overcrowding on the Leeds to Horsforth section, old, noisy, dirty and poorly maintained rolling stock, an infrequent service between York and Harrogate and its single track section and a general lack of available rolling stock.

More often than not, trains arrive with 3 or 4 carriages and things work fine. On the occasion that 2 carriages arrive at peak times the problem is very apparent. It is fair to say that the majority of passengers get on and off in the section between Horsforth and Leeds. Passengers have to stand or are often left on platforms. If Northern Rail had more carriages available to them at peak times, I believe this pinch point would be solved. The running of a fast service from Leeds to Weeton perhaps, or a shuttle type service to and from Horsforth would also solve this issue. I believe Northern Rail are incompetent and do not have any concept of resource planning. Often a 2 carriage train will be waiting at Leeds, the incoming service will arrive and will be coupled together, former a welcome 4 carriage train. This coupling process often doesn’t work, the rear train in then left behind and we have a 2 carriage service again. In their defence, Northern Rail may have the rolling stock, but due to its age, maintenance becomes a factor as does reliability so trains are off the network receiving attention not in revenue service.

As an example of the sheer lunacy and bad planning demonstrated by Northern Rail, a cricket game took place recently at Headingley between England and Sri Lanka. This event was well publicised many months in advance. We are all encouraged to make use of public transport but 2 carriages arrived at Hornbeam Park that morning which arrived full from Harrogate, and was dangerously overcrowded after picking up at Hornbeam Park. Those left waiting on the platform at Pannal and subsequent stations could only watch in envy as the cattle truck stopped and moved off without any additional passengers joining. This utter shambles of a company couldn’t even work out that more people would want to use the train that day. The addition of 2 more carriages would have solved this situation. I don’t think this is a difficult problem to solve, if Northern Rail want to solve it.

If the rolling stock is an issue for being old, I would question why proposals are in place to replace stock built in the 1980′s with that built in the 1970′s. This ex-underground stock may have been recently refurbished but the underlying chassis and fabric of the stock is 40 years old. This is not progress and does not represent an “upgrade” to the Harrogate Line. As for the levels of comfort offered by this “new” stock. You just wait and see. I travelled on this stock, in London, for the best part of 3 years and I can imagine the dishevelled look of business people and conference goers arriving at Harrogate after a bone shaking ride from Leeds. Most of them would probably be stood up too because as they are designed for short commuter hops and have significantly less seats that traditional rolling stock. I would prefer to stick with the current stock to be honest and its not often you hear me say that.

I believe the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce should spend their time and money more wisely and actually work with the current operators in a partnership to improve the service on this line. Yes, public transport is important for the town but we need to be realistic. Investment in new rolling stock, to compliment what we have already would be an almost instant win. I’m not asking for brand new carriages, but those carriages that are surplus to requirements elsewhere on the network. The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce proposals would see major disruption for many years while the infrastructure is built and the underground trains are not available until 2014.

Everyone has a car these days and money for investment in new public transport schemes just isn’t there. Lets face these facts and move on. I keep hearing the desire to re-open the railway through Ripon. Laudable yes, but totally unrealistic and a waste of everybody’s time. I would urge the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce to instead look at ways to improve traffic flow within Harrogate. Skipton Road, Wetherby Road and Knaresborough Road are effective no-go areas for much of the day and do not promote movement around the town. From my home in Bilton it can take me 20-30 minutes to travel to Sainburys which is no much more than a 1 mile journey. I read that their are proposals for a Park and Ride scheme. This I support, but will no doubt be located on the favoured south side of the town and us in the north still suffer.

I would close by summarising that I think these proposals are unrealistic but that work is needed to improve the Harrogate Line. Just not this option.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Hyde

……end.

Who knows where this will go?

A response…… There is alot of copying and pasting going on here I think, but I still think the likelyhood of this scheme happening is zero.

Graham

I do wish you had contacted Harrogate Chamber before writing to the press instead of afterwards, because we could have given you explanations for most of the points you raise.    Hence if the paper prints your letter the I would ask them to publish the following response.

I can assure readers that we have consulted widely amongst all the relevant Rail Industry bodies and numerous experts in order to devise a relatively low-cost solution to the recognised deficiencies of the current Harrogate Line rail services.  However you should not blame Northern Rail for the current situation – they are making the best of the situation which the previous Government franchised them to operate – with no requirement to invest in new rolling stock.

In simple terms the current proposal offers: 

• Short-term  deliverable – a quick win “in our lifetime”
• •Segregated line – no freight and no side routes
• •High Impact – alleviates overcrowding, improves frequency
• •Great value for money, affordable with proven demand growth
• •Tried and tested 3rd rail technology – as used on LU and DLR
• Can be installed without major disruption to the current services
• Recently upgraded and refurbished full size 6-car trains
• Seats for 280 and standing room for another 821 standing
• •Improved seating comfort with punctuality and reliability
• 4 sliding doors in each car driver operated for faster boarding 
• •Efficient operation and environmentally sound.
• •Walk-up service will stimulate modal shift from car to train
• •Private enterprise partnership with local Councils & Chamber
• •“Can do” and “deliverable” approach – driven by local partners

Harrogate Chamber of Trade & Commerce is already spending a lot of time (but no money) on working with the current operators Northern Rail to identify possible improvements within the current franchise budget.  However there are simply no more “surplus” diesel trains anywhere in the UK – and there are not likely to be any new ones built in the foreseeable future. 

Harrogate Chamber has also devoted a lot of time (but no money) to identifying the Traffic Blackspots that cause the severe congestion on our major radial roads. In conjunction with the leading Bus and Taxi operators, we have twice taken NYCC Highways Engineers on tours of the Town to demonstrate the problems and to identify possible solutions.  We are still awaiting their promised solutions.   The ideal solution to Harrogate main road traffic is of course the original plan for a Western Relief Road and a Northern Bypass, but the prospects for such new roads are zero in the present economic climate.

However the Government is seeking suitable locations for demonstrating lower costs ways of operating a local rail service, as recommended by Sir Roy McNulty.    “It is recommended that several routes with different characteristics are identified where the principles of lower-cost regional networks could be developed, piloted in operation and benchmarked.”

We have demonstrated  that the Harrogate Line could be an ideal pilot route using cascaded rolling stock on the existing track using proven low-cost electrification, providing a much faster service capable of stopping at more stations along the line.   This concept merits widespread support – and NOT wishful thinking for new trains that are not justifiable or 25kV overhead electrification which is impracticable on this route.

For further details of the proposals and the answers to many Frequently Asked Questions please look at www.harrogateline.org

Brian L Dunsby, Chief Executive
(Holder of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion)
HARROGATE CHAMBER OF TRADE & COMMERCE
P O Box 8, Dept T2, HARROGATE HG2 8XB, UK
Tel: 01423 879208 (2 lines) Fax: 01423 870025
Mobile: 07836 537512 (only when out of the office)
E-mail: chiefexec@harrogatechamber.org
Website: www.harrogatechamber.org

See also: www.harrogateline.org
See also: www.yorkshirebusinessmarket.org
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/brianldunsby

My First Festival

I have recently become a big fan of the Leeds band Hope&Social having been introduced to them through several friends and seeing them live at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on .  Since then, and having played their music to my wife and children I have been lookign for suitable gigs to take a wife, a 3 year old and an 8 year old to.  This has presented itself in the form of Deer Shed Festival from Friday 22nd July to Sunday 24th July.  Hope&Social are playing on the Friday night and its a great start to the girls’ summer holidays.  Close to home, in case of emergencies, a great line up of bands that (to be honest) I’m not familiar with, but I think that’s the thing about this experience.  A new one all round.  No “geo” really, but I guess its in a field!

 

A message from Andrew Strauss…

I thought it was worth reproducing this message from the England cricket captain. I felt very special but then realised it was a simple mail merge.

Dear Graham

As you receive this email we’ll be preparing for our first training session in Colombo ahead of our quarter-final against Sri Lanka later in the week. I think it’s fair to say our journey has been a rollercoaster ride and whilst there’s no doubting we could’ve played better in some of the matches I have been delighted with the fight and determination we’ve shown throughout the tournament so far. There’s no doubting Sri Lanka will be a tough opponents. They’ve played well throughout the tournament so far and fully deserve our respect. But, I’m confident they’ll come up against a very committed England team that is determined to take this opportunity to claim a place in a World Cup semi-final. As always your support means everything to us. The following we had throughout the tour to Australia was amazing and we’ve seen something similar over the past month as we’ve travelled around South East Asia. On behalf of the team I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you and hope to see you over the course of the summer.

Andrew Strauss

Health Geographies and the Impact of the White Paper

Measuring and comparing health issues across England requires a keen understanding of its geography and population. Simple? If only it was.  Geographies and populations are not always equitable and because they change over time solving this problem can be put into the too hard box. 

The vision for the future of health care described in The NHS White Paper demands better information to support decision making by the public, patients, commissioners and providers.  These demands require some new thinking to the old issue around geographies and populations.

This seminar will look at the potential knowledge that could be unlocked using a key honed using geography and population information. The session will also consider some of the challenges and pitfalls for analysts, present some examples of solutions to enable time series analysis of health and discuss the latest views around how geography and population data help informaticians meet the new demands for health and social care analysis.

Dr Paul Norman from Leeds University and myself, Graham Hyde, presented at a lunchtime seminar building on the strategic partnership work between Leeds University and the NHS Information Centre.

Geographies and populations, Where are the boundaries?

new demands for health and social care analysis

AGI GeoCommunity ’11 – My Route to Success

In these times of austerity in the Public Sector, when this year’s AGI GeoCommunity event was announced, my heart sank somewhat when I thought of the process that I must follow to get authority to attend.  Company policy is vague and funding amounts even more so. Agreement was sought from Line Manager, Line Manager’s Line Manager, Line Manager’s Line Manager’s Line Manager, Exectutive Director.  Principals before Processes?  Not really.

This year’s event is entitled “Placing Ourselves in the New Economy“.  Sounds interesting, but then these annual events in my view are must attend things.

It all boils down to time spent on the form…..and the ground work of agreeing my attendance with my line manager several months ago at my annual performance review.  AGI GeoCommunity is a cut and paste every year!

Q1. Please give a brief description of the learning activity you are applying for:
Two day conference on the application of geographical information and information systems offers two full days of thought leadership, practical education, knowledge transfer and real world best practice case studies.

Q2. Is this development need essential for the job ?
Yes/No

Q3. Please detail how this learning activity will benefit the work area and the (insert company name)? (linked to the business plan and (insert company name) strategy)
The (insert team name) team at the (insert company name), under its Service Level Agreement with the (insert sponsor organisation), supports (sponsor organisation) and the (insert company name) itself on all aspects of GIS and Digital Mapping.  This support is particularly important at this time as the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement goes live on 1st April 2011 and with the imminent shake up in health geography relating to GP Commissioning and GP Consortia.  Continuing to represent the interests of Health in this area of knowledge remains a focus of the team and staying up-to-date on the latest trends and developments assists that function.

Q4. How will the learning outcome be evaluated? The success of the activity will be measured against these – No application will be considered without clear learning outcomes having been identified)
Networking with colleagues, customers, suppliers and experts in the field.
Best practice in the use and display of geographic information.
Learn about new developments and latest thinking in the sector.

Q5. Please indicate which other methods of meeting this development need have been considered.
Coaching/Mentoring  0 e-Learning 1 Coaching   0  Library  0 Shadowing  0 Books 1 Research via internet   1

Other: (please expand)
As this is the only event of its type in the UK, and Geography is the core function of our team, and is a priority 1 task, there are no sensible alternatives to the depth of learning, skills, experience and opportunities that could be gained from attending this event.
Other seminars covering similar (but not the same) ground exist, but are more focused on individual suppliers or market sectors and may be more expensive (for example ESRI conference in the USA). 

Being an AGI Member pays dividend with a cheaper rate, as does getting in early to take advantage of the early bird discounts.  The online booking is simple and quick. Within a few minutes I had emailed our training section an invoice. Efficient or what?  Unfortunately I could not pursuade management to pay for the conference ice breaker but Alan’s quiz is very hard so I won’t miss that! The new location in Nottingham means a early start but closer to home. There was mention from a number of the Northern based GI people of getting a geo-funbus going.  Steve Hall of Mercator GeoSystems Ltd offered his VW Campervan.

See you in Nottingham on 21st and 22nd September.  I’ll leave the actual Route to Success open for others to comment on the best route but I will say I will probably mostly be using A1 and M1.

The Ashes 2010-11: in detail

The recent spanking that Australia recieved at the hands of England is revealed here in all its statistical glory.

Does anyone fancy a curry?

For the final day of the 5th test between Australia and England in Sydney all tickets were free.  I tweeted “It’s free entry to the SCG for day 5 of the final test.  I’m up for it. Anyone else? I’ll drive….”  I had two offers to accompany me on that epic voyage from @mark_per and @daza66. Mark riding shotgun and Darryl in the boot. This got me thinking. Could you drive to Australia?  No is the short answer. But you could drive to Delhi for a curry.

Checking with a leading web mapping company run by Greg Oogle finds a drive time of 5 days straight from my home town of Harrogate to Delhi.  6289 miles.  That doesn’t include any rest breaks.  So it is a possibility. I think delivery would be pushing it.

The route would take us down to the South Coast and through the Channel Tunnel, across France, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and then into India.

The Route

Who’s coming?

What about the Geography?

The NHS is in a state…..of flux.  With Andrew Lansley taking over in the health hot seat after the last general election, he took no time at all in letting us all know his vision for the future of the NHS.  You can read this in the many papers he has published but two of the most pertinent are Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS and Healthy lives, healthy people: our strategy for public health in England.

The future is GP lead commissioning with the removal of PCTs and SHAs.  OK, fine.  Are all GPs in it for the love of the job or are they in it to make money?  Do they want to give the face to face bad news to a patient that they think the money they could spend on some life extending drugs for them, will actually be spend to fund operations to save the lives of 4 children.  Tough call, when they’ve got a brand new BMW in the car park.  This kind of bad news is currently handled faceless administrators in the PCTs.

Traditional geography will dissappear in the form of Primary Care Organisations and Strategic Health Authorities.  How will health use Geography – or not – when the NHS is restructured?  It is certain that the lowest geographical unit will be the GP Practice, but that doesn’t have a defined geography.  A patient can now register with any GP, anywhere they like.  Each GP must organise himself into a GP Consortia creating a cluster of GPs, again, with no defined geography.  The Public Health paper does state…. p. 62 Paragraph 4.5 GP consortia will have responsibility for the whole population in their area.  How?  The population that are registered with a GP are covered, what about those that aren’t?

Do we need defined health geography as we have had?  Perhaps not.  A GP Consortia will have to report to a Local Authority, could be more than one, but to report health statistics at Local Authority level would be unhelpful for health inequalities and health needs analysis, regeneration, service planning.  would publication of health information be better at lower levels?  I think so.  Make use of LSOAs.  Well established building blocks which are small enough to identify areas of need within a Local Authority.  Small numbers may be a problem, but there lies another issue.  Information Governance around health information is tight to say the least.  Should it be?  To be honest if I thought my health information was beign analysed and would inform decision makers on more appropriate service provision or targetted intervention programmes, I don’t care.  I’d probably already have posted it on twitter or facebook anyway!

A post on the Guardian DataBlog Few patterns in GP commissioning pathfinders on 12th January 2011, reveals a lovely map, using Google.  Last month the DoH named the first 52 pathfinder consortia. Information from eight of England’s 10 SHAs revealed GPs have grouped into around 260 consortia, suggesting there will be 300-350 nationwide.  DoH national clinical commissioning network lead Dr James Kingsland warned the figure was ‘frighteningly similar’ to the original number of PCTs. There were 302 PCTs before mergers in 2006 created the current set of 152

Each Pathfinder Consortia does include a geography, mostly Local Authorities or Counties.  An interesting point is raised “…The range of sizes and types of consortia allows for experimentation. It might cause problems later as the remaining GP practices have to choose a consortia to join, and could be forced to fill in the gaps – although it’s possible they would be able to join existing consortia. And health secretary Andrew Lansley is clearly more interested at this stage in trying new models and seeing what works, rather than keeping the picture tidy.”

In my day job I have been trying to engage with Policy people but with little success.  It would appear that the NHS restructure does not consider Geography to be very high up on its list of things to do.  What I find worrying, is that resolving the issue of Geography within Health may be a done deal already without any consultation or expert advice.

Perhaps DoH has a Plan B up its sleave anyway and the reforms are just too big a deal?  Time will tell.

1st April – Its no joke

This also appears on the AGI Local Public Services SIG pages

April 1^st is fast becoming a memorable date in the calendar not just for practical jokes.  It could potentially be renamed as “GI Day”.

As a result of the Ordnance Survey Consultation we saw the release of OS OpenData^TM on 1^st April 2010.  This made a selection of Ordnance Survey mapping available for unrestricted reuse and exploitation.  1^st April 2011 will see an equally significant event when Government makes an extensive range of core products from Ordnance Survey available as the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA).  It will be the largest collective agreement between Ordnance Survey and Communities and Local Government (CLG) and brings together the Pan Government Agreement, Mapping Services Agreement, NHS Digital Mapping Agreement and the Greater London Agreement.

Key features of PSMA.

• a portfolio of core products covering Great Britain supplied by Ordnance Survey, plus the scheduled updates of the OS OpenData products;
• membership open to all eligible public sector organisations in England and Wales;
• centrally-funded by CLG.  CLG does not invoice members for any PSMA-related fees.  The PAF costs for the PSMA are also centrally-funded;
• the same licence terms for all members to promote and enable data sharing, with provision to supply data and derived data with Contractors and End Users;
• ability to share derived data with the public sector covered by the OSMA;
• Free To Use licensing included
• An exemption process that allows members to apply for derived data to be released as Free To Use data.

The PSMA supports two key government objectives; the Devolution and Localism Bill which devolves greater powers to councils/individuals and the Transparency agenda to deliver better value for money in public spending.  PSMA will give the Public Sector access to a wide range of geographic data provided by Ordnance Survey and will result in significant cost savings, greater data sharing, more effective joint working which will drive forward improvements in public services in England and Wales.

Members of all existing collective purchase agreements are eligible to join PSMA including some others.  Town and parish councils together with emergency responders such as Mountain Rescue and RNLI are also eligible.

Licensing is becoming simpler too.  New licenses are being worked on which backs up Ordnance Survey’s commitment to making licensing less complicated.  PSMA Members will be able to use the data for any non commercial purpose so long as it is in the delivery of Government policy and services defined as their core business.

A significant outcome of the Government’s response to the OS Consultation was the desire to introduce a National Address Gazetteer (NAG).  Details are still to be finalised but it is not an easy task to leverage the benefits of the National Land and Property Gazetteer, Ordnance Survey Address Layer 2 and Royal Mail PAF into a new product.

A public sector Geographic Information (GI) Group will be established to provide strategic direction for the agreement.  This will be led by an independent chair, and members will represent the interests of the public sector as a whole.  The GI Group will engage with public sector users to provide feedback to Ordnance Survey on how the PSMA should develop over time.  Proposals are in place to also create a network of regional based User/Technical Groups to engage Policy Makers in the use of GI and focussed on ensuring that the best use of Ordnance Survey’s data can be made.

The PSMA will predominantly be a web based experience.  Members of existing mapping agreements will migrate to the PSMA but must go through a sign up process and agree to the revised/new licence terms.  Super Users in each Member organisation will be able to grant access to other users within their organisation, or contractors, but still retain control over the data holding.  Depending upon size, orders may be delivered through a download service similar to that used by the already well established OS OpenData^TM.  Organisations will be able to manage their entire Ordnance Survey data holding in one place including OS OpenData^TM, PSMA and any commercial data arrangements.  Updates to datasets will be pushed through this channel too.

Lifting the cost barrier from Ordnance Survey product gives organisations the opportunity to use highly detailed and rich datasets which were previously out of reach.  MasterMap Topography Layer, Integrated Transport Network and VectorMap Local are three such high value products.

One issue though is what is the Value of Free?  Perception may be that now much of Ordnance Survey’s data is free to the Public Sector, it may have no value.  What happens to all the GI data budgets from Local Authority’s?  Is it simply handed back to the Finance Director and offered up as a cost saving or perhaps the challenge is for GI people to keep hold of the budget to invest in technology, training or other peripherals.  I think we all know what the answer is here.

Free shouldn’t be confused with useful though.  Not all users who will be signing up to PSMA have the skills necessary to manage the formats or volume of data which will be offered by Ordnance Survey.  Support is therefore critical for these users.  This is where the PSMA can offer and leg up to the GI Market Place.  Managed services, hosted services, tile caching or web services could be built on top of PSMA to provide data in more useful ways.

One of the major challenges and especially within the financial constraints imposed upon the Public Sector is how the success of PSMA is measured?  The up take of Ordnance Survey MasterMap products, cost savings made as a result of more detailed analysis or GI becoming mainstream and underpinning more Public Sector decisions?  More efficient bus or refuse collection routing, wider sharing of best practice across the public sector or more joined up working and data sharing across Local Government and the Health sector.

The introduction of the Public Sector Mapping Agreement on April 1^st 2011 may not make the front pages and is not a joke, but it is a significant milestone in Public Sector GI and brings with it many opportunities for the GI Community to show the power of Geographical Information.