{"id":55912,"date":"2015-03-26T13:13:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T13:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=aa33eb62388449f84abadbda5e043db7"},"modified":"2015-03-26T13:13:21","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T13:13:21","slug":"press-release-commercial-use-of-public-data-study-published","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=55912","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Commercial use of public data study published"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The evaluation was carried out by economic consultancy DotEcon<\/a> (following a competitive tender process) and is one of the two evaluations of past work by UK competition authorities that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA<\/abbr>) has committed to undertake each year.<\/p>\n

The Office of Fair Trading\u2019s (OFT<\/abbr>) study<\/a> identified shortcomings in how public sector information (PSI<\/abbr>) was made available for reuse and the extent to which this allowed businesses to compete with public service information holders (PSIHs<\/abbr>) in the supply of value-added products and services.<\/p>\n

DotEcon\u2019s report<\/a> notes that the market has grown substantially since 2006 and that growth is due to a number of factors, some of which relate to the recommendations made by the OFT<\/abbr> and others to the government\u2019s Open Data agenda helping to bring about change.<\/p>\n

However, implementation of the OFT<\/abbr>\u2019s recommendations has been mixed. For example, accounting separation \u2013 enabling PSIHs<\/abbr> to distinguish unrefined information for which they are the only supplier (which they should provide to other parties at no more than full cost) from value-added products for which there are competing suppliers \u2013 is acknowledged as good practice, but there have been limited examples of this being put into practice.<\/p>\n

A possible cause is that sanctions available to regulators have not kept pace with the development of the sector, and the report also notes that the OFT<\/abbr>\u2019s follow-up work could have gone further while highlighting concerns around the tension between PSIHs<\/abbr> acting as self-financing trading funds while also being asked to make their data more widely available.<\/p>\n

Given the different factors influencing change in this sector, DotEcon recognises that direct quantification of the benefits from the OFT<\/abbr> report is difficult but has estimated them at between \u00a310 million and \u00a350 million.<\/p>\n

John Kirkpatrick, Senior Director at the CMA<\/abbr>, said:<\/p>\n

\n

Evaluations like this are an essential exercise for the CMA<\/abbr>, allowing us to look back and learn \u2013 and then apply those lessons for the future.<\/p>\n

This remains an important and evolving market and whilst the OFT<\/abbr> study helped spark some change and set out widely accepted principles for its development, it is clear from this report that there remains more to be done.<\/p>\n

We plan to use this report\u2019s findings to push for further change where necessary, so that in an increasingly digital era, more of the potential benefits to society are realised.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Notes to editors<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Examples of PSI<\/abbr> include weather observations collected by the Met Office, records held by The National Archives used by the public to trace their family history, and mapping data collated by Ordnance Survey.<\/li>\n
  2. The underlying raw information can be vital for businesses wanting to make value-added products and services such as in-car satellite navigation systems. PSIHs<\/abbr> are often the only source for this data and a number of PSIHs<\/abbr> also compete with businesses in turning the information into value-added products and services.<\/li>\n
  3. Applications (apps<\/abbr>) rely to a varying degree on PSI<\/abbr>. Weather and mapping apps<\/abbr> are among the most popular app categories. For example, in the UK there were more than 2 million downloads and more than 30 million active users of navigation apps<\/abbr> in December 2013.<\/li>\n
  4. The CMA<\/abbr> is the UK\u2019s primary competition and consumer authority. It is an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law. From 1 April 2014 it took over the functions of the Competition Commission and the competition and certain consumer functions of the OFT<\/abbr>, under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.<\/li>\n
  5. Enquiries should be directed to Simon Belgard (simon.belgard@cma.gsi.gov.uk<\/a>, 020 3738 6472) or Rory Taylor (rory.taylor@cma.gsi.gov.uk<\/a>, 020 3738 6798).<\/li>\n
  6. For CMA<\/abbr> updates see our homepage<\/a> or follow us on Twitter @CMAgovuk<\/a>, Flickr<\/a> and LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The CMA has published an independent evaluation on the impact of the OFT\u2019s 2006 market study into the commercial use of public information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}