Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information

To inform the review of the Directive, APPSI has answered the EC’s consultation questions by drawing on its report to the EC.

APPSI Submission to the European Commission (Word - 256 KB)

The majority view within APPSI is that:

• with certain explicit exceptions, Public Sector Bodies (PSBs) should be required to make PSI available for re-use;
• Public Sector information (PSI) originally created as part of the public task of a PSB or integral to the discharge of a public function should be within the scope of the Directive;
• high level EC policy guidance should be provided on interpretation of the concept of ‘public task’ and the UK government should create and operate a public process for its definition and periodic review; the process should include provision for public consultation and challenge;
• the scope of the exclusion of documents in which third parties own intellectual property rights should be clarified, so as to bring within the scope of the Directive documents (i.) where the third party is another EU public sector body; (ii) documents containing re-usable content that is not protected by the third party rights; and (iii) documents where the third party has licensed the document for re-use;
• EC guidance be provided to give much greater encouragement in the Directive for adoption of a marginal cost regime (for most documents), and clarification provided as to whether, and the extent to which, the costs that can be re-charged to re-users should relate to the documents in question or to documents in general; and also that guidance be provided on the principles that should apply to the calculation of costs, following best practice in Member States. The bulk of the APPSI members urge the UK government to move to a marginal cost pricing model for PSI;
• wherever exclusive arrangements remain, a justification should be published, and that all information about exclusive arrangements should appear in one place;
• the UK government should launch an awareness-raising campaign on the merits of PSI re-use.

The Chair of APPSI, Professor David Rhind set out a series of recommendations to progress the re-use of PSI in the UK in a letter to Michael WIlls MP, Minister of State for Justice, on 21 July 2008.  The letter refers to

• a lack of any compulsion for public sector bodies to make PSI available for re-use
• the need to define the term public task
• the need for more research regarding third party Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) held by public sector bodies as third party IPR falls outside the scope of the EC Directive and the PSI regulations
• the EC Directive and PSI Regulations, which have little power to enforce penalties to prohibit breaches of the EC Directive or PSI Regulations
• pricing issues that have long been a contentious issue and a main barrier to re-use
• the need for clarity on exclusive licensing arrangements.

Letter to Michael Wills MP (PDF - 135 KB)