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Christopher Corbin
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Sunday 20 May 2007 8:38:41 pm
Is there a need to define “public task”?
Directive 2003/98/EC uses the phrase “…public task(s)….” in eight places within the text:
Recital’s 8, 9 and 19.
Articles 1.2(a), 2.4 and 10.2
Many of the Member State transpositions of the Directive have also taken forward into their national laws the words “public task” without providing a definition.
Where Member States have provided guidance to the public sector and or the re-user it is noticeable that there is a lack of guidance on what is meant by “public task”, the term “public task” may not be used in a consistent way and there is no or little advice given as to how to locate the public task of a public body.
For example the UK Office of Fair Trading report “The commercial use of public information (CUPI)” states on pages 47 and 48:
4.44 Additionally, other terms such as 'statutory function', 'core task' and 'public task' are used in several guidance documents, apparently interchangeably, but it is unclear whether they refer to identical activities. While 'public task' is referred to explicitly in the Re-use Regulations, it is not defined. Some PSIHs have commented they do not have a clear statement of their own public task. For example, our survey of PSIHs found that only two out of the 18 PSIHs with delegated authority have a standard definition of their public task that exists as a single document.
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/reports/the_oft_cupi_report
The EU MODINIS funded project Breaking Barriers to e-Government also refers to the issue of “public task” and states:
“Workplace and organizational inflexibility significant
Although the adoption of the PSI Directive has begun to change the situation, a lack of a PSI re-use culture persists in Member States. Some public sector documents are excluded from the scope of the PSI Directive. In addition, Article 1(2)(a) of the PSI Directive determines that its regime is not applicable to documents that form part of an activity falling outside the scope of the public task of the public sector bodies. In applying the PSI Directive, it is very important to determine what a public task is and is not.”
http://www.egovbarriers.org/?view=subject&subject=psi
At the recent ePSIplus PSI Pricing 1: impact analysis in the context of the PSI Directive that was held in Helsinki there was a call for a definition of “public task” and for improved guidance both at the European Union level (a recommendation to the European Commission) and the Member State level (a recommendation to the Member State lead bodies).
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/..._in_the_context_of_the_psi_directive
A number of experts attending ePSIplus meeting in Helsinki stated that some Member States enshrine in law the “public task” for all public bodies but is this correct?
It is true that for some public bodies there may be a law that defines their role and the boundaries of their operations, for example Statutory Registers.
Politicians often initiated re-structures of the public sector from the top down and these changes are often brought into being within weeks rather than months yet there is no accompanying legislation. This was occurring in Finland during the ePSIplus Pricing 1 meeting following the recent national elections in Finland..
So why does this matter in the context of PSI re-use?
As the ePSIplus Reports PSI Tips - PSI Filter tips! shows the interpretation of public task is key with respect to how much PSI is actually available for re-use.
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/reports/psi_tips
It is noticeable that a number of public sector bodies across Europe claim that some or all of their information holdings fall outside of the PSI Directive framework and as a consequence do not need to comply with the Directive. If there is no public statement or document that sets out clearly the public task of the public body concerned it becomes almost impossible to ascertain whether the public bodies statement is correct or not without appealing to a higher authority! This example is particularly noticeable where a public sector body also trades on the open re-use market by offering data products and information services itself and is acting in a non transparent way. An example of this has occurred in the UK regarding the Intelligent Addressing complaint against the Ordnance Survey taken up with the UK Office of Public Sector Information and then appealing to the UK Advisory Panel for Public Sector information. Reference the two URL’s following:
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/...r_information_so_42_8_4_13_july_2006
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/..._and_ordnance_survey_30th_april_2007
The issue is further complicated when re-using PSI across borders as the public bodies either side of a border may well take diametric positions with respect to their public task. That is one public body does comply with the Directive as they deem their public sector information holdings to be part of their public task whilst others state they are exempt as some or all of their public sector information holdings are not part of their public task! As a result the potential opportunity to re-use the same category of PSI across a border is severely affected and may result in no re-use business developing with these particular data sets.
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The scenario above then raises a number of questions:
Question 1: Is there a need to define public task?
Question 2: Is it possible to define public task in a consistent way across the EU?
Question 3: Would it be instead preferable to make it mandatory requirement that each public sector body has to publish their public task?
Question 4: When a public sector information holder’s claims exemption from the Directive should the onus of proof be placed on the public sector information body rather than on the re-user to challenge the PSIH position?
Question 5: Is there a need to raise this issue with elected politicians?
Question 6: Is there a member State in the EU that sets down in law the role of every public sector body within that country?
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Gerhard Wagner
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Thursday 31 May 2007 12:41:20 pm
Unterstanding markets is more effective than legal Mock battles (Scheingefechte)
Bearing in mind the really boring scientific debate in Germany to distinguish between public task and governmental task - just to bybpass the PSI-Directive - I would propose another approach:
As soon as public dataholders realize that THEY also might benefit from private re-use products and they share the same boat with the private re-users, most of the open issues relating to the PSI-Directive will face a rapid solution.
Understanding market mechanisms is always more effective than maintaining legal and sophisticated struggles.
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Christian Lister
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Thursday 31 May 2007 10:24:49 pm
Understanding - its a psychological process
Gerhard presents a very good point - understanding market mechanisms is always more effective than maintaining legal and sophisticated struggles.
I can see only one problem with understanding – it takes all parties to understand.
For example - I understand Gerhard’s statement, but as psychological process do I accept it? (i do accept)
Understanding and accepting are two totally different angles, a position proven in the UK.
The UK understands PSI re-use is high, value added data from the private sector is a growth area, the UK is also perceptive, the industry capitalisation could command £1billion per annum, generating vast revenue streams for the economy, but do they accept to be able to embrace such a magical figure, cultural changes need to take place?
Cultural changes are a leap of faith – I understand this.
To embrace cultural changes Governments need to release data, without restrictive charges and access provisions applied – will they accept this?
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Robert Davies
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Thursday 12 July 2007 3:40:58 pm
Public task definition - how?
At risk of bowdlerising European Commission sentiment, I believe that it may be held in Luxembourg that the problem of defining 'public task' across member states is too difficult to tackle at European level because of the substantial varaitions between national understandings on this point.
If it is to be seen therefore as an issue for member states to tackle individually (leaving aside all the complications that this presents for cross-borderb prdcucts etc the question for me is where, then, could I expect to look to see a defintion of the public task of any given government department, agency, local authority etc.
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Christian Lister
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Sunday 15 July 2007 7:53:06 pm
starting point
The Guide to Best Practice defines the term ‘public task’ as ‘any activity of a public
sector body which is prescribed by law or in which it engages as a result of common administrative
practice’.
this is a solid starting point.
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Christopher Corbin
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Sunday 05 August 2007 9:19:12 am
OPSI acts on Public Task
The UK Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) publication:
The United Kingdom Implementation of the European Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector information – the first two years
contains an action (Reference page 27 number 2) that states:
“OPSI will produce a clearer interpretation of what is meant by the term public task. This will be included in the Guide to the Regulations and Best Practice, which will enforce the existing practice guidance to public sector organisation to help them define their public task”
The action OPSI is taking is in fact the first step towards the issue that Rob mentions that trying to resolve this particular issue is “too difficult at the European level.” In other words Governments must bring clarity into their structures especially in a mixed economy. At least OPSI is trying to address this issue. Are there other examples from other Member States that show they have sensed the issue and that they are acting to address it?
The view raised by Gerhard and supported by Christian that the key is to understand markets is perhaps too simplistic – how Governments (political) establish and manage the government structures (public bodies and servants) is one only Government can address. Sure a PSIH acting in the spirit of the PSI Directive could operate in the way suggested by Gerhard but does this lead to data being made available for re-use such that value added products and services can be developed that serve geographic areas irrespective of political and or functional boundaries? What if the PSIH is competing against others in the market – could they not use the definition of public task as a way of ensuring they have advantage in the market? Okay so we then refer to the Competition Authorities – one then has to ask how many examples are there that actively demonstrate that the Competition Authorities have really addressed the mixed economy market issues?
Is it not time that everyone stopped theorising – faced reality of competitive markets – and looked for solutions?
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Christian Lister
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Thursday 16 August 2007 10:25:18 pm
the Government’s business is not be in business
both Central Government and Local Government should allow progressive data re-use, rather than holding onto the preferred position – competing against private companies.
With environmental data the main and positive focus point for INSPIRE, which additional data is now encompassed within the directive?
With the addition of Home Information Packs into the UK certain components are ‘now within the definition’ environmental data – for example............. Energy Performance Certificates.
The UK Government laid (11 June 2007) the revised regulations to deliver Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Home Information (HIPs) for the UK housing market on 1 August.
Earlier this year
http://www.seeit.co.uk/haringey/Map.cfm
produced a substantial and Local Government funded ‘heat-loss’ solution.
Funding provided by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund for a project to reduce the levels of fuel poverty in the borough enabled the purchase and subsequent processing of both sets of data.
Haringey Council was absolutely delighted to be the first English council to publish the results of an aerial thermal survey on its website.
(taken from)
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/...using/housingadvice/homeheatloss.htm
(The sole aim of the project was to assist residents with properly insulating their properties. the aerial thermographic survey is a snapshot taken at one moment in time of how much heat your property was losing when the aeroplane flew over. The information provided is useful, but not the definitive guide to how energy efficient a property is as the amount of heat a building loses can be influenced by many factors. )
With Local Government competing within the Energy Performance Certificate market and with the future transposition of INSPIRE – the data when collated, becomes a new addition - should the data then be made available for PSI re-use?
If the new data is assimilated into the EU Directive did Central Government inform potential or prospective collaters of the Energy Information prior to the investment of personal moneterey funds of the INSPIRE directive?
Kind Regards,
Christian
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Christopher Corbin
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Friday 17 August 2007 1:20:45 pm
What is the Public Task with respect to ECP’s and HIP’s
Christian highlights some interesting examples with respect to what is the public task of the following public bodies:
- The Department of State of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) that leads on House Information Packs (HIP’s) and Energy Performance Certificates (EPC’s). http://www.communities.gov.uk/
- Local Authority’s such as the London Borough of Haringey and the heat loss map.
- The Department of State for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that leads on INSPIRE. http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/gi/uk-eu-global/inspire.htm
There is clearly a public task role in ensuring:
- The democratic rights of citizens are maintained on an inclusive basis and part of this will involve the provision of information. (Interestingly the London Borough of Haringey has purchased much of the data from elsewhere and as such there are IPR implications related to re-use of that data.)
- To be efficient by deploying and exploiting ICT (eGovernment to express it another way) and defining where the boundaries lie. (The issue here is that public sector bodies in adopting eGovernment have sometimes gone beyond there normal public task boundary and have moved down stream in the value chain within the market which then gives rise to some of the issues that are arising under the re-use of PSI)
- To work towards the public sector being joined up and aware of Government or European Union policies (especially if Secondary legislation is used compare to Primary Legislation – may impact the complaints, appeal and use of the Courts to resolve PSI re-use issues.).
With respect to INSPIRE and the issue Christian raises regarding who should be aware within the public sector about INSPIRE and how that impacts other data policies related to PSI is indeed worthy of analysis. (Interestingly the INSPIRE objective is to improve policy making, implementation and maintenance related to environment!)
Unfortunately just a quick review of the public facing web sites on INSPIRE within the UK show it is questionable as to whether it has been handled correctly and two of the public bodies involved are connected with INSPIRE – namely the DCLG and Defra) as such Christian has a valid point.
To put this into context consider the following:
1. Defra is the lead Department for INSPIRE.
2. On the Defra web site the INSPIRE information appears under How do we Work? http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/gi/uk-eu-global/inspire.htm
3. There is no link from Defra’s INSPIRE pages to Defra’s Access to Information pages where the re-use of PSI Regulations are linked. http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengov/index.htm
4. The Defra INSPIRE web pages refer the reader to The Intra-Governmental group on Geographic Information (IGGI) web site, which is administered by DCLG. http://www.iggi.gov.uk/initiatives.php This highlights a number of interesting points:
a. This connects DCLG and Defra so the two public bodies should be aware!
b. Defra has deferred responsibility for informing the UK society about INSPIRE to a central government body that has no mandate and to a European Commission web site (the latter is understandable for the EU context)!
c. Defra has decided to use a web site for information dissemination that is scheduled to disappear under the UK Governments Transformational Government initiative!
5. The Defra INSPIRE web pages refer the reader to the Geographic Information Panel (GIP), which is administered by DCLG! The GIP is far from open and transparent and what its role is with respect to INSPIRE is yet to be divulged!
The UK Cabinet Office has a policy for handling the issue that Christian refers to and that is to use Regulatory Impact Assessments (only one tool within the Cabinet Office port folio of handling cross-cutting issues such as those raised by Christian). To date Defra has been very slow to use this method in the public domain and although one hears on the grape vine that there is an intention to undertake an RIA the question still arises but when!
During the INSPIRE co-decision process Defra in fact one Christmas – New Year period undertook what they believe was an RIA – it clearly did not meet with the RIA guidelines set down by the UK Cabinet Office. The RIA is but one way to address the issue of awareness and impacts related to other policies.
Whether improvements to the above would fully address the issue of awareness amongst policy makers within public sector bodies is doubtful as the numbers are large whether it be public servants, policies, and or public bodies involved. In an environment that is in a constant state of change may also result in lack of awareness. One could ask why has eGovernment not broken out of its technological silo approach and addressed this issue? Perhaps the answer is to leave it to society to deal with it and raise the issues – which is exactly what Christina is doing but as an entrepreneur that may have invested in the HIP and ECP processes!
If one then compares the approach within the UK adopted by OPSI (or rather HMSO at the time and when it was within the Cabinet Office) and The Department of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (or rather DTI at the time) with respect to the PSI Directive with that of Defra’s approach with respect to the INSPIRE Directive then OPSI win hands down. Now whether this is down to some of the public sector employees involved at the time, being within the Cabinet Office and at a level where they could take the correct action or not is perhaps a matter for researchers and historians to resolve. It is clear however that Defra have approached the INSPIRE Directive and its transposition poorly compared to OPSI/DTI. As a result one then stumbles into the issue Christian has raised that one part of the public sector is not in tune with another!
The Defra record on INSPIRE also looks poor following the publication of Defra’s response to the UK Parliament Select Committee that is currently reviewing the impact of their recommendations that they made in their report related to the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain that the Committee published in the summer of 2002. During the co-decision process Defra put the Trading Fund position forward over and above all the other interests of the UK yet there response to the Select Committee highlights there concerns regarding Trading Funds and their behaviour! Once again one can understand why even within the public sector there is a poor understanding of INSPIRE and its likely impact. ePSIplus News item at URL refers to the select committees work.
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/news/16_responses_received
The Guardian newspaper Technology Supplement under the Free our Data Campaign on 16th August 2007 titled:
Want to see a great 3D model of London online? Ordnance Survey says no.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technol...nweeklytechnologysection.freeourdata
The Free Our Data campaign approach maybe one solution to Christians problem – that data is made available at no charge or at cost of dissemination – interestingly that is just how the PSI Directive started off within the Co-decision process. No prizes for guessing which Member State and its public sector bodies lobbied for Charging to be allowed and to include Return on Investment – another topic for the ePSIplus forum!
In summary:
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The issue Christian has identified is more to do with whether the public bodies involved in this case have in fact delivered their public task. (The issue of INSPIRE - HIPs - EPCs). All the indications are that they have not or if the public bodies believe they have then it has been poorly delivered.
There is also a possible difference between HIPs and EPCs which are more than likely top down driven by the elected Government of the day (Ministers) where as INSPIRE is appearing very much like a bottom up approach within Defra. (INSPIRE does not feature on the Governments high priority agenda items)
There is little point in changing either the PSI Directive itself or in this case the UK Transposition PSI Regulations 2005 SI 1515 as that is not the issue at stake here.
Although this discussion topic is very much focussed on the UK there are indications that it is exactly the same in other Member States. For example Sweden - the Statskontoret report titled: Joining-up for regional Development: How governments deal with a wicked problem, overlapping policies and fragmented responsibilities
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/reports/sweden_statskontoret_reports
Hence the reason why within ePSIplus on of the priority areas is that of public sector culture - perhaps the Bratislava meeting on the 8 October 2007 will highlight a range of good practices that could be brought to bear.
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Christopher Corbin
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Monday 20 October 2008 6:47:52 am
The Public Task debate
Michael Nicholson of Intelligent Addressing considers the the question of what is the "Public Task" of PSI holders and how should the boundaries of Public Task be drawn to stimulate choice, higher quality, enterprise and innovation? How might government best procure the information it needs in order to govern?
Further information may be found via the ePSIplus news topic: The Public Task Debate.
http://www.epsiplus.net/news/the_public_task_debate
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