Comments on: The Office of National Statistics and Postcodes

By: Let no idea go to waste | qwghlm.co.uk

Let no idea go to waste | qwghlm.co.uk — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:57:40 +0000

[...] busy creating a more accurate postcode geodata resource for the 2011 Census, which it is promptly going to destroy after it’s finished. Closer to home, I created an election map of the UK for the 2001 & [...]

By: alex

alex — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:12:25 +0000

Does Tom Watson know this ?

These millions might be better spent combating the recession

By: Harry

Harry — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:19:41 +0000

Not sure what the percentage is, or about the OS thing, but iirc Royal Mail make ~£18m a year from the PAF, so it’s not a small thing.

Maintaining OS data is actually quite complicated — I don’t think it’s a small sum. That said, I _do_ think it’s a small sum compared to the value it would generate if reusing their data was free and easy.

I think the OS should be made into an NDPB/exec agency, and I said as much on the PoI taskforce beta report — but I don’t know if they included that

By: Tony Kennick

Tony Kennick — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:19:46 +0000

I woukd love to work out what percentage of Royal Mail’s budget was met by selling PAF and what revenue the OS protect from blocking public bodies using their data in mashups etc. I bet it is so neglagable that if the government went down the US route of it is public domain for the UK we wouldn’t notice the extra tax cost. (The OS would still have to sort out the licence clash with google maps though

By: Geeklawyer

Geeklawyer — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:55:29 +0000

I find this astounding. This needs to be stopped. There has to be a governmental route to stop this: the public accounting office or some-such?