Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information

The European Commission has published a summary report on the results of the Review of the EC PSI Directive. The Review received 37 responses in total from a range of stakeholders including PSI content holders re-users, non-profit organisations, commercial associations, and private individuals. Many of these responses have also been published along with the report.  This report does not indicate how the Commission intends to address the issues raised by the consultation as the Commission’s Communication on the Review of the Directive is still currently under preparation. A general overview of the replies are as follows:

• Respondents have signalled that the Directive has had a positive impact on promoting PSI re-use in their respective countries by providing and establishing a legislative framework in a previously unregulated market.
• A majority of respondents say that significant barriers remain that would need to be addressed to fully exploit the PSI re-use potential in the EU.
• A majority of re-users suggest legislative amendments to the Directive to make it 'sharper' and 'tighter'.
• A majority of respondents believe that the implementation of the Directive has had very little impact on the pricing of PSI, although some exceptions have been signalled.
• The problems that have been frequently signalled are:

- lack of awareness of the potential of PSI re-use and of the Directive amongst public sector bodies, especially at regional and local level

- little effort from public sector bodies for facilitating and promoting re-use

- lack of knowledge or mechanisms to identify what information is available for re-use

- the non-mandatory requirements for PSI re-use

- strict licensing conditions imposed by public sector content holders

- the limits of the public task when public bodies commercially compete with private firms

- unfair competition practices by public sector bodies

- very limited transparency on public sector bodies' re-use policies and notably on the way charges are calculated

- the absence of efficient means of redress.

• Diverging views exist between public sector bodies (the supply side) and re-users (the demand side) on the PSI current re-use environment.
• The public sector bodies that represent the supply side believe that the Directive is working well.
• Re-users consider that the implementation of the Directive has been much too slow.
• Some respondents state that the Directive has been neither properly implemented nor applied in Member States.
• A significant number of stakeholders have expressed their support for extending the scope of the Directive to cultural, research, and broadcasting institutions.
• Respondents suggested the implementation of national asset lists / repositories and the obligation for Member States to report annually to the Commission on their actions towards promoting PSI.
• It was strongly recommended that guidance should be issued on specific terms of the Directive, e.g. the definitions of 'public tasks', 'documents', 'marginal cost pricing', and 'reasonable return on investment.'

See also the submissions to the EC Review consultation.