[OSM-legal-talk] The Future of the National Interest Mapping Services Agreement Beyond 2006

[Jo Walsh]

dear Richard, Mikel, all,
On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 12:23:36PM +0000, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> >How will this affect the Ordnance Survey's position?
> >Anyone have any idea which services have been covered by NIMSA?
> 
> cc:ed to Jo, who I think is the one person in the open mapping  
> movement who actually understands NIMSA. ;)

I think that you vastly overestimate my NIMSA-comprehending capacity.
One chap with the real clue would be Chris Corbin. Here's an email of
his to EGIP which covers NIMSA in some detail:
http://egip.jrc.it/200606/1699.html

It includes a lot of excerpts from answers to Parliamentary questions
about the scope of NIMSA, of which this is the most informative: 

[[ 
NIMSA contributes to the maintenance of the National Geospatial
Database and the provision of other uneconomic activities in the
national interest. NIMSA supports the maintenance of databases; it
does not support the creation of products nor the dissemination of
products derived from the databases.

The services provided by NIMSA are typically available at no cost, not
only to Government but also to professionals and the general public.
They include formal education, providing information on geographic
datasets, and provision of mapping in the event of emergencies. 
]]

I guess we find out specifically what a cut-down NIMSA is *intended* 
to cover from what kind of procurement requests go out for national
interest mapping services, unless they are all distributed through
different "public sector bodies" and it is hard to track anymore. 

>From the archives, a few excerpts from the last NIMSA consultation:
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/geo-discuss/2005-May/000018.html

So my understanding is that the precise service rendered is vague; at
stake here is the OS's public service remit in maintaining map data for 
"uneconomic areas". Now if this can be offered out to the open market,
effectively privatised, then yes why should the OS retain this
"Trading Fund" status and not also be privatised or have more of the
brokering services it performs put out to competition? 

Food for thought, eh?

cheers,


jo

> 
> From my brief first reading it looks like the end of the OS's  
> Government-funded obligation to map every part of the UK to a high  
> level of detail. Am I right in thinking this is likely to make the OS  
> behave even more like a private sector company, not less?
> 
> cheers
> Richard
> 
> >[quote continues]
> >http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1504248
> >
> >DCLG considers that:
> >
> >(a) it is appropriate for some of the services which have been   
> >supported by NIMSA,
> >to be procured directly by those public sector bodies who require   
> >them, either
> >individually or collaboratively; and
> >
> >(b) it is appropriate for DCLG to continue supporting some national 
> >interest
> >geographic activities but on a much smaller scale than previously.
> >
> >DCLG has therefore decided that:
> >
> >(a) the current NIMSA arrangement with Ordnance Survey will be   
> >terminated with
> >effect from December 31st 2006; and
> >
> >(b) DCLG will continue until further notice to support the operation  
> > of a national
> >geospatial metadata service (currently known as gigateway).
> >
> >In addition, DCLG will continue to fund the work of the GI Panel   
> >including the
> >development of a GI Strategy for the United Kingdom.
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >legal-talk mailing list
> >legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
> >http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-talk
> >
> 
> 

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