[geo-discuss] Texts adopted by Parliament: INSPIRE

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,
On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 12:38:01PM +0100, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> >Better, send an email to all our signatories asking them to take action
> >like:
> I don't think we necessarily want to email all 5500 signatories. Rather 
> we want one person per country to volunteer to do this. See below.
> 
> So far we have:
>   UK: Rufus Pollock
>   FR: Benjamin Henrion

I thought Benjamin was .BE, not .FR - any chance of trying both?
Also we have nominal representatives for .IT, .ES, .FR and if we can
form a clear script and task list, and explain the reasons why this
would help a lot, we could find more; the freegis list would be a good
place to ask, with many international voices.

> >1. Email and call their responsible minister (do we have a list?) and
> >ask them if they support the amendment 21 and 27?
> We don't have this for most countries. The wiki page for this is:
> http://www.publicgeodata.org/ContactYourEnvironmentDepartment
> >2. If they answer negatively, call an MP and ask them to put an urgent
> >question to the Minister.

Let's work on getting more details filled out on the wiki over the
next couple of days.  

> I've already contacted the UK agency (DEFRA) and the basic response was:
>   * the UK government position isn't going to change from what it was 
> previously
>   * Cost recovery and public sector information issues are dealt with 
> by the Treasury and we should contact them (I was given contact details 
> for the person in the treasury who deals with this are)
> 
Eric Pickles MP has been asking a string of Ordnance Survey and one
INSPIRE related question recently in UK Parliament. Despite the fact
that DEFRA is setting INSPIRE policy, the minister responsible for the
OS is Yvette Cooper in the DCLG or ODPM as was. 
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?s=section%3Awrans+ordnance+survey&pid=10477
- 16 written questions and answers including one INSPIRE one, which
wasn't answered, just punted on ("not OS's problem, but DEFRA's").

See in particular http://tinyurl.com/oh38d , "to ask what plans OS has
for making public data available to the public". The written answer he
received is basically untrue; OS *does* receive a sizeable state
subsidy voted by Parliament through NIMSA. Otherwise, this is more
"our hands our tied by our political masters" material. 

> >3. Report this initiative to geo-discuss at lists.okfn.org.
> >I will start today contacting my minister and one MP.
> Great.

Nod, please do let us know how you get on, and let's overhaul the wiki
soon.

thanks,


jo