PSI is very often available at no charge.  However, where it is charged for, under some of the present arrangements – and especially with Trading Funds - it can attract very restrictive licensing terms affecting all actual and potential re-users and ultimately the citizen, upon whose behalf the PSI was collected in the first place.

Locus is currently agnostic on the issue of “free data” but it does believe that some of the current PSI strategies are detrimental to the UK and that there is inadequate control and regulation of Trading Funds.

The last article emphasized the importance of PSI and explained how the act of re-charging prevents the maximisation of re-use.  Nonetheless, at first sight, Treasury ambitions in these instances appear modest – simply to recover from users some part of the cost of annual maintenance.  For example, PSI Holders which are Trading Funds are typically required to recover their costs plus 5%.

Unfortunately, this policy can be translated aggressively by some ambitious Trading Funds as an opportunity to exploit and grow their PSI base commercially.  Because there is no very clear definition of what is and what is not PSI, or indeed what new information tools might be developed by Trading Funds, mission creep is all too easy.  

Data exploitation requires licensing. The more commercially ambitious a PSI producer, the more restrictive and complex their licences tend to become.  These licences can inhibit the effectiveness of the public sector as much as the private sector and can result in different licences being offered for the same product used in different markets.  Segmentation of this sort is laborious to manage and risks being highly contentious.  

In the public sector which is, for example, striving to modernise, share resources where practical, and allow citizens easy access to information services over the Web, some PSI licences can act as an absolute barrier to achieving these things.

In the private sector, if an entrepreneur has a good idea as to how to enhance and develop PSI but discovers that these enhancements may, because of restrictive licensing, in effect be heavily commercially controlled by the original PSI provider it is hardly an incentive to enterprise and innovation!  And yet that is the position. 

In theory, tight regulation should be able to monitor and prevent abuse of a monopoly or dominant position.  In practice the checks and balances are inadequate and their influence misunderstood by government.  Ministerial responsibility is fragmented amongst several departments and many officials have oversight of part of the jigsaw, and generally the non-commercial parts of it.  Each Trading Fund reports to its own Minister, the Ministry of Justice has a remit as do Treasury and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), which has a recognised policy advisory remit, is, in Locus’s view, completely under-resourced for its task and cannot have effective oversight of the huge area of government producing PSI. Nevertheless OPSI is considered to be the sector “Regulator” although it has no statutory power and is a division of the National Archives.  Its excellent “Information Fair Trader Scheme” (IFTS), although somewhat subjective, is designed to encourage best practice and compliance amongst “the willing” but lacks effective options for enforcement in the event of non-compliance.  

OPSI is also in an awkward position where it must support government policy and is not truly representative of all stakeholders in the process.  Decisions made under the IFTS complaints process are not subject to Judicial Review.

The PSI Regulations exclude vital PSI and require tightening.  The National Audit Office’s remit to review financial activity is too high level and the Office of Fair Trading does not have the resource to investigate all abuse.

In short, whilst some Ministers seem to believe there is adequate regulation and control of PSI Holders, in practice there is little.

If Locus’s concerns are grounded in reality, and there seems to be a growing body of opinion in government that they are, then removing these problems would present an opportunity.  This was the key message from the “Power of Information” report by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg which was commissioned by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.

Whilst we await the report of consultants appointed by Treasury to examine the economic detriment or benefit in changing the status quo, Locus will continue its campaign for change.  Our next article will consider some of the financial aberrations that the current situation can produce.