Is Ordnance Survey in line for privatisation?
No. Speculation about the future of the national mapping agency – holder of one of the government’s most valuable collections of digital data – arose in the run-up to Monday’s pre-Budget report. The Sunday Times suggested Ordnance Survey was one of several state-owned businesses that would be privatised to help the chancellor balance the nation’s red ink-filled books. But it was wrong. Instead, on Monday a small note in the report said the government “will shortly publish some key principles for the re-use of this [public sector] information… For the Ordnance Survey, this will involve consideration of its underlying business model. Further details will be announced in Budget 2009.” That isn’t a hint at privatisation; quite the opposite. Privatisation wouldn’t change OS’s business model, where it makes money from selling licences for its data; it would simply move it into the private sector (a move that the Free Our Data campaign opposes: a national geographic database is a core gover
