Low-Profile Regs You Don't Want to Miss: The Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005
Jinfo Blog

By Sue Broughton

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The worst release time for a thoughtful and thought-provoking foreign film shot by hand in black-and-white is a simultaneous release of The Lord of the Rings. Compared with the blockbuster Freedom of Information Act, the Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations is a heart-warmer from Uzbekistan.

As the law firm Walker Morris pointed out in a press release in October 2004, the Regulations were published in December 2003 but 'have attracted little attention' -- something of an understatement, I feel. If not for Freedom of Information, the Re-Use Regulations would have been film of the month if not of the year, but by July 2005 when the Regulations came into force, everyone was recovering from the shell-shock of training for, and dealing with, all the implications of FoI; and the Regulations got bypassed.

Adding to the deafening silence of its debut, the Re-Use Regulations were not a mandatory statute. With FoI, authorities faced a tight schedule of processes from 2000 onwards; the Regulations, on the other hand, included no requirements to have created Asset Registers beforehand, no mandatory requirements to train or inform staff, and no penalties if the Regulations were not immediately implemented. They also arrived with little if any fanfare, and, in comparison to the full-blown press interest in Freedom of Information, with no press coverage.

The final "straight to video" element for the Regulations is one of the least catchy names in the history of legislation - shorten it down to its initials, and the closest thing you can say is "rupture" or "pounds per square inch". Without a sexy acronym, what do the Regulations have going for them?

What Regulations?

In case you missed the press release, the Regulations issue from the European Directive on the re-use of Public Sector Information, approved by the Council of Ministers on 27 October 2003. The Directive's main objective is to promote the re-use of information (that's "documents" to most people) held by public sector organisations:

• Re-use means re-use of a document outside of the public authority (or outside of another public sector body, if the document is transferred to them) and use for something other than its original purpose.
  
  
• Requests for re-use must be in writing, (letter, fax, email), providing the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence, specifying the document requested and stating the purpose for which it is to be used.
  
  
• Responses to a request for re-use must be made within twenty working days. Responses should be made as soon as possible. The time can be extended for complex documents or where a document is exempt (outside the legislation).
  
  
• The Council may charge for re-use, but the charge must not exceed the sum of the cost of collection, production, reproduction, and dissemination of the documents and a reasonable return on investment.
  
  
• The authority should list all main documents for re-use as an Asset Register. The items included should be documents or datasets identified as having some re-useable added value, and in which the authority holds copyright.
  
  

For anyone who trained staff in the implications of Freedom of Information, you can understand the Regulations as, effectively, a balance on the seesaw of information provision, and a reason for a sigh of relief. While training Council staff on FoI, one of the most common questions I fielded could be paraphrased as, 'What do we get out of it?'. FoI puts a burden on local authorities in that they may carry out quite complex pieces of work and then find their end result requested under FoI; essentially they have to provide for free (or at a very minor cost) work that has cost considerable time and effort and which would, in a commercial arena, be commercially valuable. The Re-Use Regulations have recognised and to a great extent can plug this loophole for local authorities.

But it's not all directed at benefits for local authorities. Commercial companies stand to benefit as well. Many lack access to, and knowledge of, the work local authorities have done, which companies can re-use as a basis for, or even as a major part of, their own commercial research or planning. Local authorities often don't recognise the knock-on benefits of reports and other research which has been carried out for internal processes or for government performance indicators, and they may not publish the material they produce or make it available externally. Commercial companies are unlikely to request information on-spec under FoI, so this sort of valuable information can remain unrecognised - used once for a specified purpose when it could have value to commercial organisations, independent of its use to the local authority.

The nuts and bolts

So how do the Regulations work? Any information currently published by an authority or available through a government or public organisation's website may be used by individuals for their private research or study, but use by commercial organisations has always been more problematic because of copyright or intellectual property rights. The Re-Use Regulations will now enable authorities to monitor and benefit from certain types of re-use, while creating a process to permit commercial organisations to re-use the information and thereby benefit themselves. Information which is used commercially and is out of the context of the original creation of the document or information must be acknowledged. And where the authority chooses to use the Regulations information can be licensed or supplied for re-use at a charge, and under certain conditions of use.

Unlike FoI, adoption of the Regulations is not mandatory. Authorities may still choose to provide all their published information free of charge or only at a publication charge. In such cases, however, the authority is unlikely to identify the information it holds that commercial companies might be able to re-use.

On the other hand, an authority that implements the Regulations is likely to provide the information-seeking public with a much closer look at what documents the authority holds, and how they might be re-used commercially. The Re-Use Regulations require adopting organisations to create an Asset Register which lists documents for commercial re-use. Unlike the FoI Publication scheme, this is a list of documents, not of classes, although it could be linked to a Publication Scheme -- and the Asset Register itself will form a class within the Publication Scheme. Each document can be identified as carrying certain re-usable information (the Register, again unlike FoI, is for documents, not information) and against its entry in the Register can be placed terms for its re-use, such as via a licensing system.

To look at a specific example, statistical data updated every month, quarter or year could be identified as a licensed product. A licence would entitle a commercial organisation to the update every time it was published, and might be renewable every year or five years, depending on the nature of the information. Or it could be a one-off charge, so a report could be placed on the Register with a single re-use charge enabling any commercial organisation which purchases it to re-use it in whatever way it chooses.

From the commercial viewpoint, the Re-Use Regulations are akin to the key to the candy factory. Assuming that authorities recognise what is of value, they will organise and register information about documents with commercial value in a single place, rather then having them scattered across an authority, and often unpublished. A good Asset Register will summarise possible re-use as well as providing information on costs. There are implications for the operation of higher level-business interaction through the process as well - an email forum to prior commercial clients to advise them of new items added to the Register would be an excellent proactive process for both authorities and commercial organisations, and could promote closer interaction in the creation of information through feedback.

Markets and budgets

However, once an authority has started the process, anything requested which is not on the Register may need to be reviewed for inclusion, because the other facet of the Regulations is the one which will sell this to management: money. Commercial organisations recognisably pay commercial prices for information that saves them research costs or other expenses and over time, authorities have an opportunity to create an additional revenue stream.

At present the legislation is so new that discussion of rates and licensing fees has not attracted much attention, and authorities will probably be cautious, at least initially, in pricing their material for re-use. Two things are certain, though: fees will definitely be more than what authorities currently get (nothing, or the cost of duplication); and costs under the Regulations will represent savings for commercial organisations over what they would spend for the same information in the commercial world. As a result, the commercial world can benefit from the knowledge and skills of the authority's services and staff, while the authority realises a positive impact on its budget.

As noted, the Regulations plug a loophole in FoI and in particular will enable authorities to address concerns over how information will be used when supplied: FoI does not permit authorities to ask the purpose of a request but the Re-use Regulations do. By adopting the Regulations, an authority's standard FoI receipt-of-request letters could carry a basic statement about copyright, intellectual property, and the charges for re-use. Information could be provided electronically through websites, with password-protected sites for licensed users that enable authorities to summarise documents but ensure that unimpeded access is only available to those commercial organisations that have paid for the privilege. The process is already recognised by many commercial organisations such as British Standards Institution, where transactions are carried out online.

Next steps

With these considerations in mind, what needs to be done on both sides to move the Re-Use agenda forward?

Local authorities must designate a 'champion' to take the process forward and promote it to management. They will need to consult with other services to list all main documents for re-use within an Asset Register, and to establish from the list of main documents a set of standard charges and charges for specific documents (if required), as well as a set of conditions for re-use which they can publish to the authority website. Training and information will ensure that all staff understand the process and view the Asset Register as an evolving document, ensuring that it doesn't become a dinosaur at the moment of creation. The authority will also require licensing conditions, procedural guidance for complaints and standard letters. Where partnership agreements exist, they must include information on how to manage requests to re-use information the partnership produces, and any consultation or research report must include copyright and re-use statements.

Commercial organisations must become involved at grass roots level by providing good indications of the sort of information which is useful, valuable and viable for re-use. Even if the authority hasn't yet started reviewing the Regulations, now is the time to ask if there is a timetable for take-up, and to indicate that your organisation wants to come on board and would welcome access for re-use to certain classes of information. Such feedback will enable authorities to re- think their information creation and provision to ensure it has a commercial viability if this is possible within statutory requirements. The results may surprise you both, and may yet turn the Re-Use Regulations into the sleeper hit of the century.

Useful links

Walker Morris Solicitors, press release, October 2003: <http://www.walkermorris.co.uk/content.aspx?id=181>

Office of Public Sector Information website: <http://www.opsi.gov.uk/>

EU Directive on Public Sector Information: the next big thing! Tim Turner and Ibrahim Hassan, ActNow, June 2005 <http://www.actnow.org.uk/ReUse%20Directive.pdf>

APPSI Annual Report on Public Sector Information, LGCnet press release, August 2005 <http://digbig.com/4gwfy>

Related FreePint links:

• 'Politics and Government' articles in the FreePint Portal <http://www.freepint.com/go/p113>
  
  
• Post a message to the authors, Sue Broughton, or suggest further resources at the FreePint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
  
  
• Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks <http://www.freepint.com/issues/300306.htm#feature>
  
  
• Access the entire archive of FreePint content <http://www.freepint.com/portal/content/>
  
  

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