P
Minutes of the 42nd meeting of the
Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information
Date:
Time:
Venue:
28 January 2014
11.00am – 12.30pm
McKinsey & Company, 1 Jermyn St, London SW1Y 4UH
Attendees: Chair
Members
Professor David Rhind
Bob Barr
Duncan Macniven
Hilary Newiss
Hugh Neffendorf
Michael Jennings
Neil Ackroyd
Phillip Webb
Keith Dugmore
Michael Nicholson
Paul Longley
David Lammey
Shane O‘Neill
Bill Oates
Expert Member
Representative Member for Scotland
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Expert Member
Representative Member for Northern Ireland
Expert member
Representative Member for Wales
Carol Tullo
Director, Information Policy & Services, The National
Archives
Head of Standards, The National Archives
Head of Information Policy, The National Archives
Business and Policy Manager, The National Archives
Secretary to APPSI (minutes)
Nonmembers
Marcia Jackson
Jim Wretham
Beth Brook
Beth Watson
1.Welcome and Apologies
1.1.
Apologies were received from Patricia Seex and Dean White.
1.2.
The Chairman and other members congratulated Keith Dugmore on his being awarded an MBE
in the New Year's Honours List for services to UK business.
2. Minutes of previous meeting and actions
2.1. The minutes were approved as an accurate record of the matters discussed (Paper 1).
2.2. Outstanding actions from the previous meeting:

ACTION: Chairman to ask Sir Mark Walport and the National Statistician to a future APPSI
meeting. Status: Ongoing.
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
ACTION: Members to provide comments on APPSI's strengths and achievements to date.
Status: Complete. The 'Impact of APPSI' paper has been published on the website.

ACTION: Hugh to inform members when the glossary is ready to be launched. Status: See
item 5.

ACTION: Members to consider the subjects suggested for working papers and where they
may be able to contribute. Status: Ongoing.
2.3. Hugh Neffendorf informed members that the independent report on the feasibility of an Open
National Address Gazetteer, which he had produced for the Department for Business Innovation and
Skills (BIS), would be published within a few days. It would be open for comment for one month.
3. TNA update on current PSI issues
3.1. Carol Tullo reported on the current issues:

PSI Directive
Work is continuing on the transposition of the EU PSI Directive into UK legislation by the
deadline of June 2015. The Government has committed to early transposition as the Directive
aims to support the wider economy and its implementation forms part of the Government's policy
on open data and transparency. TNA are managing the process and are working hard with key
Government stakeholders and the devolved administrations. There are some issues where the
Directive has left scope for member states to organise their own approaches, which the UK still
needs to work through, in particular the setting up of an impartial review body to consider
complaints. Carol explained that the UK's regime is seen as a good model, and preferable to that
of some other member states where disputes move straight to the courts. However, any
proposals regarding the regulatory regime will be included in the public consultation in May and it
will be for Ministers to decide on the final approach.
Members noted the possible impact of the 2015 general election on timing but Carol said that it
was expected that it would be cleared by Cabinet, pass through Parliament and come into force
ahead of the 2015 General Election.

Triennial Review
APPSI was due to undergo a triennial review and it had been expected that the announcement of
the start of the review wold be made before the end of the financial year. However, it would be
difficult for the review team to reach a decision on whether APPSI was still required, in its current
or a modified form, before the outcome of the PSI Directive consultation was known. Therefore
TNA's preferred option would be for the review to be deferred until the consultation had
concluded and discussions with the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice are taking place.

Balance of Competencies exercise
The Ministry of Justice is currently drawing together plans and information for a Balance of
Competences review on information rights. A call for evidence would be published shortly.

Annual Report on PSI
The UK Report on the Re-use of Public Sector Information 2013 was published on 31 October
2013.

PSI Conferences
Carol spoke at the Northern Ireland Executive's Open Data event on 7 November (see Annex A)
She also attended the 18th meeting of PSI Officials Group in Luxembourg on 26 November where
participants updated the other member states on recent PSI activity and progress on
transposition of the PSI Directive.
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
Open Government Partnership (OGP)
The OGP Summit took place at the end of October and saw the launch of the UK's OGP Action
Plan.

Creative Commons 4.0
The latest version of the Creative Commons Licences were launched in November 2013. The
legal deed is shorter and the language used is simpler although still not as clear as the Open
Government Licence. There is no longer any need to adapt the licences for use in other
jurisdictions and they specifically cover sui generis database rights. The UK remains confident
that the OGL is the appropriate licence for UK PSI and it is fully interoperable with CC4.0.

Intellectual Copyright Consultations
The National Archives is working with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on two consultation
exercises, the IPO's own consultation on orphan works and the review of EU Copyright Rules.

Complaints
OPSI is currently tracking a number of complaints relating to the reuse of PSI. Its reports will be
published in due course.

IFTS verifications
Since the last meeting the Met Office had been re-verified and the Health & Safety Laboratory
had been accredited. A number of other organisations, including Ordnance Survey, the National
Offender Management Service, UK Hydrographic Office, DSA, and DVLA, were expected to be
re-verified over the next few months. A new business case had also been received from Public
Health England.

Data Sharing Bill
The Cabinet Office is leading on this but there are complex issues to be resolved. While a draft
bill is expected by Easter, the Chairman noted that the likelihood of this resulting in an Act is less
certain than previously.
Michael Nicholson observed that the current landscape is so complex that it is difficult to work
out what things meant in practice. He wondered if it would be possible to publish any metrics that
would assist public and private sector decision making on public task. Carol explained that there
was guidance available on TNA's website and workshops were run for public sector
stakeholders. However, there was work to be done making the guidance more visible and the
PSI Directive transposing into UK law would provide a good opportunity to do this and to stress
again organisations' responsibilities regarding the management of their information.
4. Update from the devolved administrations
4.1. David Lammey updated members on recent developments in Northern Ireland (see Annex A). Upon
concluding his report, David noted that level of engagement in Northern Ireland had seen a remarkable
change for the better from a couple of years ago. The Chairman thanked David for his advocacy of PSI
issues.
4.2. Duncan Macniven updated members on recent developments in Scotland. He was pleased to report
that Scottish statisticians were working towards 5-star accreditation and that there was a promise of
greater linkage between data sets. However, progress had been slower and more piecemeal than the
UK Government. The Scottish Government's focus was also shifting to concentrate on public interaction
and online transactions rather than the publication of datasets. Since the last meeting there had been
the creation of a .scot domain and a series of seminars were planned for stakeholders on the
transposition of the PSI Directive. Shane O'Neill observed that there were some questions as to what
was and what was not considered to be public data, and in particular the status of the Roads
Commissioner. Michael explained that she is currently considered to be an individual and that the issue
would be addressed under transposition.
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4.3. Bill Oates updated members on recent developments in Wales. He said that there was currently a
lack of engagement on PSI issues in general although there had been some encouraging progress with
regard to particular datasets. He drew attention to those released under the 'My Local…' initiative which
aimed to give the general public access to more data about their local services. He noted that an
examination of the number of views these sites had would prove useful in identifying the drivers that
encouraged people to engage with published datasets and in helping to decide what to prioritise in
future. 'My Local School', for example, had had 25,000 views while 'My Local Health Service' had only
had 5,000.
4.4. Bill was hopeful that the Digital Wales 2014 summit and the emergence of the Digital Wales
Strategy would help to raise the profile of PSI issues in Wales. He was also pleased to report that a
recent reorganisation of responsibilities at director level had seen the untangling of data protection and
FOI.
5. The APPSI Glossary
5.1. Bob Barr explained that publication of the glossary had been delayed due to a lack of resources. It
has therefore not yet been possible to give the final go ahead for publication although the developer had
confirmed that the site is ready to launch subject to any final amendments. Once the current version is
released, users will be able to suggest amendments to the proposed definitions. It is expected that a
revised version would then be published later this year. Carol suggested that there may be the
opportunity at a forthcoming meeting of the Transparency Board to raise the issue of resourcing and to
push for a speedy release.
6. AOB
6.1. Members discussed Philip Webb's suggestion regarding the production of a brief 'child's guide' to
current developments around PSI, including a legislative timeline. They agreed that it would be helpful in
identifying areas that it would be useful to focus on and in ascertaining where action was possible and
where it was not.
6.2. Carol noted that Heather Savory, Chair of the Open Data User Group (ODUG), had mentioned that
ODUG may be undertaking some work on the legislative landscape. Members agreed that they would
wait to see whether Heather raised this during the afternoon seminar. They would then discuss the issue
further at the next meeting and agree whether APPSI was best placed to take the proposal forward,
possibly by setting up a working group.
6.3. As an example of an issue that would benefit from inclusion in such an overview, Hilary drew
attention to the on-going discussions around intellectual property and third party rights.
6.4. Michael Nicholson also observed that there are currently several imminent EU directives related to
PSI and data protection. Given the tendency of the EU administration to work in silos, it was not clear to
what extent any apparent contradictions between the various directives were being identified or
addressed. Carol suggested that it may be helpful if a representative from the Cabinet Office's European
and Global Issues Secretariat (EGIS) came to speak to APPSI.
ACTION: A representative from EGIS to be invited to a future meeting.
ACTION: APPSI to discuss if it wishes to proceed with the production of an overview of the current PSI
landscape and how best to do so at a future meeting.
7. The Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency (Paper 2)
7.1. Members discussed Michael Jennings' paper Incongruities between the revised Code of
Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency and PSMA contractual terms.
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7.2. Michael noted that there had been a notable lack of interest from outsiders in DCLG's 2013
consultation regarding the revision of the Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authority Data. The
responses received indicated that there was some confusion about the status of some local authority
datasets. Michael suggested that this was a problem that APPSI may wish to think about. It was also the
case that those not already being exploited had attracted little attention, although in some instances this
may have been because applications using them had already been developed or because they were of
little interest unless they were aggregated nationally.
7.3. APPSI members had observed that, following the consultation, the Government required local
authorities to publish basic data concerning their land, including address, location and Unique Property
Reference Number (UPRN). However, the Government made it clear that this requirement did not
override existing licensing or contractual agreements; each public sector mapping agreement (PSMA)
member would have a principal contact who would manage that agreement and manage the use of
contractors' and end users' licences. Members noted that this appeared confusing and that there was a
need for clarification. The general feeling was that UPRN data should be in the public domain free of
charge and that APPSI should advise Ministers on the issues.
ACTION: Small working group to be set up to produce advice to Ministers, using Michael's thought piece
as a basis.
8. APPSI seminar on assessing the value of Open Data
8.1. The afternoon was devoted to a major seminar on assessing the value of Open Data. Attendees
and speakers included representatives from HM Treasury, the Office for National Statistics, the
Department for Transport, McKinsey, Google, the Open Data Institute and the Open Data User Group. A
detailed account of the proceedings will be published shortly.
Next meeting

8 April 2014 – The Nuffield Foundation, London
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ANNEX A
APPSI Meeting – 28 January 2014
NORTHERN IRELAND UPDATE
APPSI meeting – 28 January 2014
1. Open Data (Education seminar) event, Northern Ireland Science Park, 7 November 2013
The event was hosted by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and the
Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP), along with two knowledge sector institutions, NISP
CONNECT and ECIT/CSIT . Speakers included Carol Tullo, Director of Information Policy and
Services, TNA, and Richard Stirling, Membership Programme Manager, Open Data Institute. The
packed audience represented a cross section of private and public sector interests.
The location of the event is very significant. Two years ago, Belfast had no startups; now there are
many – and they have their own island to work on – Queen’s Island, formerly the site of the shipyard
that built the Titanic and an area which, until recent times, had become a wasteland. Today, rebranded the ‘Titanic Quarter’, it is the focus of a £7bn regeneration project that has yielded a Titanicthemed visitor centre, a college campus and one of Europe’s largest film studios; not to mention the
new Public Record Office of Northern Ireland building (address: 2 Titanic Boulevard).
The island is also home to a new generation of innovators. At the Northern Ireland Science Park,
more than 110 companies, from software developers to aerospace engineers, are working to reestablish Belfast as a centre of scientific and technological excellence.
2. Open Data: A Future Direction for the NICS, Titanic Belfast Conference Centre 29 January
2014
The audience (over 100 acceptances) will be composed of information managers, heads of
technology and other local stakeholders. DETI and DFP plus the Northern Ireland Research and
Statistics Agency (NISRA) are providing speakers. The principal external speaker is Graham Smith,
Deputy Commissioner, Information Commissioner’s Office.
3. Open Data Conference – June 2014
Another high profile event - aimed at information professionals, the business community and
universities - is being planned. It is hoped that a number of VIP speakers can be attracted, including
the DFP Minister and either Sir Nigel Shadbolt or Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Attempts are also being
made to combine the event with the launch of DETI’s Innovation Strategy for Northern Ireland, and
the re-launch of Land and Property Services Spatial NI portal, which is to host non-spatial data
provided by Departments and others.
4. Consultation on draft Northern Ireland Innovation Strategy 2013-2025
The public consultation has now closed. 63 responses have been published on the DETI website.
The responses will be used to inform and refine the final Executive Innovation Strategy which will be
published later in 2014. It is anticipated that the Strategy’s cultural change theme will attract most
revisions and that there will be more emphasis on educating the new generation, eg, school children.
5. Northern Ireland Statistical & Research Agency (NISRA)
Beyond the wealth of Open Data published by the Land and Property Services Division of DFP, it is
worth noting that NISRA also publishes vast amounts of its data. And, all of its statistical output is
released under the Open Government Licence. Moreover, it is working towards adopting the
Berners-Lee 5-star rating scheme on all its statistical output.
6. Information Governance
Following a Gartner-led workshop at the end of last year, revisions to the NICS’s Information
Governance structure have been mooted - a draft terms of reference for a group to replace the
Information Governance Board is out to consultation with Departments.
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7. Open Data champion appointed
The NICS Information Governance Board appointed John Wilkinson, the Land & Property Services
Director, as the Open Data champion for NI.
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