[geo-discuss] Texts adopted by Parliament: INSPIRE

Mon Jun 19 11:48:39 UTC 2006

Good digging Jo (isn't theyworkforyou useful ...). To follow up to Saul 
this is straightforward evasion using the fact that:

   i) the OS is now a trading fund (and external to govt) it doesn't 
have any public data.
   ii) all government payments to the OS come via the licensing 
agreement and the money for that comes out of departmental budgets 
(which the Minister aren't voted by parliament it appears)

Frankly I think we shouldn't worry about the evasive answer but focus on 
two main points:

i) we've got a parliamentarian (and a Conservative) who is interested 
enough to ask the question (could someone contact him)

ii) The real way to change UK policy on geodata is to lobby the treasury 
(and ignore the OS and everyone else). The Treasury are the ones who 
have set the 'cost-recovery' policy and a) care about there the money 
comes from b) the economic benefits

Regards,

Rufus

Saul Albert wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 18, 2006 at 03:12:28PM -0700, Jo Walsh wrote:
> 
>>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. 
> 
> 
> Well found Jo. 
> 
> How immensely frustrating. Is this 'basically' untrue, or 'actually'
> untrue?
> 
> From what we know,
> 
> "does not receive any funds voted directly by Parliament"
> 
> Sounds wrong, but I suspect it's true that the budget is not voted on in
> parliament, which sounds like a very unusual microbudgetary practice
> anyway. 
> 
> I know how precise the wording used by parliamentarians can be, and how
> infuriating a brush-off like this is..
> 
> Does anyone know what kinds of things *do* recieve 'funds voted directly
> by Parliament'. Difficult territory :/
> 
> X
> 
> S.