by David Rhind
Summary
The origins of NGDF
The nature of NGDF
Making NGDF Happen
A Personal View on Some Key Issues
Who is in charge of NGDF or owns it?
Coping with the varying aspirations, expectations
and agendas of different players
What will the NGDF ‘brand’ mean in practice?
How can NGDF attract political support - and does
it matter?
How will we know if NGDF has been a success?
Conclusions
References
Annex A: The Situation Elsewhere
This paper has two functions. It describes the nature of and progress with the UK National Geospatial Data Framework (NGDF), as drawn from papers approved by the NGDF Board to which the NGDF Advisory Council has made inputs. It also contains some personal views of the author on some key issues facing NGDF in the future. A plea is made for recognising at all times that the different players inevitably have somewhat different agendas and hence an important task is to accommodate a variety of perspectives on NGDF. An annex summarises the nature and progress with the US National Spatial data Infrastructure (NSDI) and how this differs from the NGDF as a consequence of different operating environments and lessons learned.
It is concluded that significant progress has already been made and, despite the complexities in anything as wide-ranging as NGDF, there is a likelihood that substantial benefits will arise though some of them may be long-term ones.
There has been a long history in Britain of formal consideration of geographic information policies and problems. Examples of this include the Serpell Report of 1979, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology Report of 1984 (Rhind 1986) and the Chorley Report of 1987 (DoE 1987, Rhind and Mounsey 1989). Indeed, the Davidson Report of 1938 might even be considered as a far-sighted pre-cursor given its emphasis upon the need for nationally homogeneous, readily available, metrically-based data conforming to certain standards. Most of these studies - all of which have had some beneficial effect on the GI industry - have been heavily centred on government as a provider and user of data; the sequence of studies cited however has shown a progression to wider and wider considerations, starting with a focus on Ordnance Survey and spreading (e.g. in the Chorley Report) to a wide range of geospatial data.
By the early 1990s however it was becoming clear that the growth of the private sector as supplier of GI services, data and tools, the changing technology and the change in user expectations and needs were creating a quite different situation. This was manifested in many ways, such as the AGI-sponsored Round Tables between government data producers and many other parties. However, no single coherent framework existed in which to consider, influence or organise all the changes. In 1995, recognition of this shortcoming and observation of the progress, achievements and problems of the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) led to what became the National Geospatial Data Framework (NGDF: see Nanson et al 1995).
NGDF was no slavish copy of NSDI (see annex for a summary of the latter). It was recognised from the outset that the situation in the UK differed from that in the USA in many ways, notably the structure and role of government is very different, there is already greater availability of high quality geospatial data across the whole (much smaller) country and government policy is very different with regard to dissemination of information.
In 1995, the problems to be resolved in the UK were (and still are) seen as:
As a result, the NGDF has a mission ‘to develop an over-arching UK framework to facilitate and encourage efficient linking, combining and widespread use of geospatial data which is fit for purpose’. The objectives of NGDF are to:
Achievement of these objectives is built upon the three NGDF ‘pillars’. These are:
Collaboration, developed through:
Use of standards
Data linkage is the key to creating added value and generating new GIS applications. But world-wide experiences demonstrate that it is easy to create meaningless data sets at great expense by this means: results may be totally erroneous and misleading unless the data sets are well-documented, adhere to agreed and published standards and the likely effects of mixing two data sets have been adequately researched. NGDF will therefore set a framework for defining business driven standards, best practice and specifications for data and services, drawing on existing national, European and international work.
Access
The simplified NGDF model is shown in figure 1. NLIS is the National Land Information Service, a prototype land conveyancing service for England and Wales now in pilot form and involving data inputs from HM Land Registry, Ordnance Survey, local governments and up to about 10 other sources. ScotLIS is the Scottish equivalent. This figure emphasises the crucial point: NGDF is not a service and is not designed to generate revenue: it is a framework within which a variety of services should operate, many of them revenue-generating. As it is inevitable that other services will grow up - indeed, that is to be desired and can not be prevented - the objective is to ensure these take advantage of experience gained in earlier services and are ‘NGDF-compliant’ so as to future proof any subsequently desired interactions between the services. Many of these services may well be operated by private sector organisations, sometimes in partnership with public sector bodies. It is central to NGDF’s success that it will encourage the development of ‘many-to-many’ relationships between data suppliers, data brokers and consumers.
Figure 1:
The simplified NGDF information service model
NGDF operates through a structure shown in figure 2. The Board consists of (mainly) public and private sector information suppliers and it is advised by a Council representing the end user, the software industry, academic and other interests. This Advisory Council is based in the Association for Geographic Information, the British GI ‘umbrella body’. Its members were chosen by election from the AGI membership constituency although spare ‘slots’ were set up for representatives of other interests who were found to be appropriate but who were not formally members of the AGI. The chair of the AGI acts as the chair of the Advisory Council and has an ‘as-of-right’ membership of the NGDF Board. Secretariats of the two organisations attend each other’s meetings as observers. Table 2 shows the initial membership organisations supplying members to the Board or the Council, the latter representing a wider constituency than their own organisation.
Figure 2:
The NGDF structure
Table 2: The founding players of NGDF
| NGDF Board | NGDF Advisory Council members are employed in these organisations |
| HM Land Registry | Anglian Water Services Ltd |
| IGGI (Central Government co-ordination group) | Birkbeck College, University of London |
| IMAG (Local Government co-ordination group) | Bristol City Council |
| Landmark Information Group Ltd | ESRI (UK) Ltd |
| National Joint Utilities Group | Dataview Solutions |
| Natural Environment Research Council | Environment Agency |
| NGDF Advisory Council | Friends of the Earth |
| Office for National Statistics | Geo-UK Ltd |
| Ordnance Survey | MVA Systematica |
| Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland | NGDF Secretary General |
| Property Intelligence Plc | Public Record Office |
| Registers of Scotland | University of Newcastle |
| The Post Office | University of Sheffield |
The work of the NGDF is largely accomplished through the Task Force and Working Groups. Membership of the latter is open, within very wide limits, to all who wish to make a contribution. The Task Force is specifically responsible for implementing the NGDF work programme, all elements of which have a timetable and milestones to completion. The Task Force is run by a Programme Director and consists of the convenors of (currently) eight NGDF working groups. These working groups are:
Areas under development include:
Under the present programme, the currently sought NGDF deliverables include:
It is intended that these will be supported by:
If NGDF is successful, data quality will improve as data owners and custodians see new revenue-earning opportunities from sale of data and new added-value derived data sets will be created by combining data from two or more sources. This should lead growth of the UK geospatial data market through improved access to data, growth of focused data linkage applications and services (including ‘one stop shopping’), reduced data collection costs by reducing data duplication and better decision-making. Details of the NGDF programme of work and progress may be found on the NGDF Web site at http://www.ngdf.org.uk.
It is self-evident that NGDF is not a simple project with clearly defined, unchanging objectives against which it is easy to produce universally agreed measures of success. If that were true, the multiplicity of those involved would be unnecessary and even disastrous.
Complex projects involving many different ‘players’ who voluntarily collaborate (even if the projected benefits are mainly intangible ones or fall to others) usually give rise to some variations in views of those involved. They also typically mutate throughout their lifetime. In the last few months a number of key issues have begun to emerge in NGDF. To the author, the main ones are:
Each of these is now considered briefly in turn.
Given the nature of NGDF as described above, no one organisation can own it and no one organisation - whether in the public or private sectors - can be in charge of it in a line management sense. Many people are stakeholders in NGDF; indeed the entirety of the population of Britain could fall into this category. But to achieve the existing targets, let alone additional ones, requires resources, innovation, commitment and leadership. This all makes for very considerable challenges in managing NGDF to success.
It is also self-evident that not all contributions will be equal and that executive actions can not in practice be assessed and agreed by large numbers of people. Those who input resources - whether these are of people, cash or influence - must inevitably play the greatest role in shaping the NGDF development. To say that ‘the user needs must prevail’ is somewhat facile if these needs are highly varied and very imperfectly known; certainly the NGDF Board decisions must include strong consideration of their likely effects on the GI market but this is not the only determinant (the laws of the land, Ministerial guidance and government policies as they relate to public sector bodies and the access to finance are others).
NGDF would never have started had not a group of organisations shown initiative. The present structures seem to represent a reasonable pragmatic balance between breadth of contribution and responsibility assumed by certain key organisations. One important caveat is that the entire exercise is liable to fail if the Advisory Council does not properly represent the entirety of views of the GI-using constituency - rather than any one sector of it. In addition, it would seem entirely appropriate to review the membership of the Board and the Advisory Council at regular intervals.
It is very simplistic to assume that everyone can be expected to collaborate to one, clearly defined end. Apart from anything else, the nature of human interactions render some disagreement inevitable in major collaborative projects. But it is particularly important to recognise that the aspirations, expectations and agendas of different players in a complex project like National Geospatial Data Framework vary greatly. Table 1 suggests the drivers for those organisations involved in a major project such as NGDF. None of these are improper or superior to any other: the point to be emphasised is that these are what guides the organisations or individuals concerned.
It follows from the contents of table 1 that the different players in NGDF not only will have different views on what actions are to be taken but even perhaps on the nature of the Framework itself. It would be surprising, for instance, if software vendors did not see its primary relevance as being a tool for fostering the sale of their own software through short term stimuli of the market place and enhanced positioning of their own firms; to assume otherwise is unrealistic in view of commercial imperatives. Equally, table 1 demonstrates the scope for great variations in the views of government departments towards GI and NGDF: with many, sometimes not always closely aligned, policy drivers and the common perception that GIS/GI is merely a matter for technicians, this heterogeneity is also to be expected.
Finally, a genuine problem with NGDF and most similar schemes is the creation of unfulfilled or unfulfillable expectations. In multi-party projects with many activities - and especially in formative periods when enthusiasm is unbridled and promises may be made without understanding of all consequences - it is easy for different individuals to build up such expectations and to be disappointed thereafter. A characteristic of NGDF thus far has been the deliberately constrained optimism: the specific deliverables are capable of being delivered and this seems a good practice to continue.
It can be argued that NGDF will mutate into an environment rather than a brand. Success in the former way would come about if it genuinely raises awareness of best practice and related or relateable activities elsewhere and if the many different players adhere to codes of practice and standards endorsed by NGDF.
But the existing NGDF programme goes beyond this, emphasising some specific targets to be met (e.g. the definition and establishment of a UK Standard Geographic Base). In that sense, NGDF is likely to evolve into a brand, especially if accreditation can be made to work effectively. In many respects, accreditation is one of the most difficult areas faced by those involved in NGDF. To make it work requires a clear definition of some standards which pertain to particular GI data or software (and probably only in relation to specific classes of application); it also requires widely accepted tools with which to judge whether the standards have been met; and it probably requires the creation of independent assessors. There are some parallels here with ISO 9000 or Investors in People and the development of assessment consultancies.
The scope for possible conflict in accreditation is considerable - suppose, for instance, that a service like NLIS or ScotLIS is assessed as not meeting a previously published set of characteristics. Suppose again that a data set produced by one commercial organisation fails accreditation whilst a competing one produced by a public sector body achieves it; the consequences could be significant. Yet these must be faced if accreditation is to mean anything and if NGDF is to become something much beyond an enabler and facilitator.
We have been relatively unsuccessful as yet in attracting significant political support for NGDF. This parallels the experience of AGI in general. It contrasts with the initial situation in the USA where the President signed an Executive Order relating to NSDI and also to that in the Netherlands (Masser 1997). It should be noted however that NSDI was not supported because it was about GI: the Clinton/Gore support was given because it was seen as one of a number of initiatives which would help to bring about Gore’s reforms of federal government effectiveness following the National Performance Review. In the UK environment - and despite government.direct - GI in general seems to have little political ‘sex appeal’ though Ministers certainly take a considerable interest in GIS/GI applications which relate directly to their specific responsibilities or policies. This suggests that it will be easier to get Ministerial support for a range of individual applications rather than wide-ranging initiatives which span the interests of multiple departments.
There is an argument that this does not matter. This view holds that the development of the GI market (and much else), with customers drawn from all sectors, is little affected by Ministerial support or patronage. Though there is some evidence to support this view - for instance, the UK market has grown considerably without overall Ministerial support - it is too simplistic to be the whole truth. As one example, the agendas of government sector data providers are often strongly influenced by Ministerial views.
NGDF players may well need to take a view of whether and, if so, how to engage political support for the Framework as an entity as well as for their individual concerns.
The existing NGDF programme has been set up as a series of projects, with assigned responsibilities and deliverables on a public timetable. In principle therefore it will be easy to detect whether it is a success. But the true value of the National Geospatial Data Framework may well go far beyond meeting specific project targets to include cultural changes, enhanced communications between different players and much else. Some of these wider achievements will only become manifested after a significant period of time and may in any case arise from multiple factors.
In short, the real success of NGDF will not be easy to measure though the views of the community will certainly be one determinant. Irrespective of all that, a major review of progress has been proscribed for three years after the NGDF initiation and this will lead to its continuation or termination.
NGDF is inevitably a complex concept and difficult-to-deliver reality. This arises from the breadth of remit which is needed to address the problems identified at the outset, the numerous interactions between them, the agendas of the different players and the shortage of resources which can be devoted to the host of important tasks. Misunderstandings of what may be involved complicate matters still further!
But irrespective of the difficulties, NGDF offers us the best collective hope we have in the UK to enhance the safe, routine and rewarding access to Geographical Information or geospatial data. A significant amount has already been achieved and various other important developments should arise over the next year. Achieving targets is a necessary but not sufficient condition for overall success: it is a high priority to describe and explain the NGDF activities and successes to the GI community and beyond on a continuing basis.
Clinton, W. J. (1994). Executive Order 12906. Co-ordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure. Washington, D.C., 2 pages.
DoE (1987) Handling Geographic Information: Report of the government Committee of Enquiry, Her Majesty's Stationary Office, London.
FGDC (1995) Development of a National Digital Geospatial Data Framework. and also The national geospatial data clearinghouse. Washington, D.C., Federal Geographic Data Committee.
FGDC (1997) A strategy for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. Washington, D.C. Federal Geographic Data Committee.
Gore, A. (1993) From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less. Report of the National Performance Review. Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office.
Majid D A (1997) Geographical data infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific. In Rhind D (ed.), Framework for the World, 206-210, Cambridge, GeoInformation International.
Masser I (1997) Governments and geographic information, London, Taylor and Francis.
MSC (1993). Toward a Co-ordinated Spatial Data Infrastructure for the Nation, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 171 pages.
MSC (1994) Promoting the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Through Partnerships, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 113 pages.
MSC (1997) The future of spatial data and society, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 68 pages.
Mooney D J and Grant D M (1997) The Australian National Spatial Data Infrastructure. In Rhind D (ed.), Framework for the World, 197-205, Cambridge, GeoInformation International.
Nanson B., Smith N. and Davey A. (1995) What is the British National Geospatial Database?, AGI ‘95 Conference Proceedings 1.4.1 - 1.4.5
OMB (1993). Circular A-130: Management of Federal Information Resources. June 25, US Office of Management and Budget, Washington, D.C.
Rhind D.W. (1986) Remote sensing, digital mapping and Geographical Information Systems : the creation of government policy in the UK. Environment and Planning C : Government and Policy 4, 91-102.
Rhind D W (1996) Economic, legal and public policy issues influencing the creation, accessibility and use of GIS databases Transactions in Geographical Information Systems 1, 1, 3-11
Rhind D.W. and Mounsey H.M.(1989) The Chorley Committee and "Handling Geographic Information", Environment and Planning A, 21, 571-85.
Tosta N (1997) National Spatial Data Infrastructures and the roles of National Mapping Organisations. In Rhind D (ed.), Framework for the World, 173-186, Cambridge, GeoInformation International.
Table 1 Some likely agendas of players in the NGDF
| ‘Player’ | Alternative short term agendas | Alternative long term agendas |
| Central Government organisations |
|
as in short term, subject to change of statute, regulations or policy of government |
| Local Government organisations |
|
as in short term, subject to change of statute, regulations or policy of government |
| Commercial sector - information trader/publisher |
|
trade profitably and have positive cash flow minimise costs of getting data from elsewhere build customer dependency and minimise competition |
Commercial sector - hardware/ software vendor |
|
trade profitably and have positive cash flow minimise costs of getting data from elsewhere build customer dependency and minimise competition |
| Commercial sector conglomerate | If focused as one business, ‘gestalt’ aspects of business (e.g. data helps sell equipment) dictate decision-making and agenda. More normally, individual enterprises within the conglomerate are judged first on their own ‘bottom lines’ | Corporate aims and goals generally more important in long term and progress towards them is monitored centrally |
| Non-Governmental Organisations (e.g. charities) |
|
obtain data, etc at minimum cost so available funds can be devoted to organisational objectives disseminate information widely to help meet objectives influence government policies wherever possible |
| Academic sector |
|
build reputation for expertise in research or teaching to influence grant allocations and enhances ‘brand image’ enhance human knowledge create more highly trained students for work elsewhere |
| All individuals |
|
altruism obtain career, finance or status benefits enhance personal skills, competence and knowledge |
The Situation Elsewhere
Information policy in the USA
The US federal government sees distribution of data it holds at the cost of dissemination (or less) as a matter of principle. This has most recently been set out in the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-130 (the latter now having been codified as section 3506(d) of The Paperwork Reduction Act 1995) in codifying this principle.
Circular 130 (OMB 1993) states that ‘The free flow of information between the government and the public is essential in a democratic society.’ It also states that charges should be set at ‘a level sufficient to recover the cost of dissemination but no higher’. Section 105 of the US 1976 Copyright Act specifies that copyright protection is not available for any work of the US government that is prepared by an employee or officer of the government as part of that person’s specific duties.
Thus federal government is not generally able to assert copyrights and any other party is free to copy, disseminate, license or sell data held by the federal government at will and without seeking permission or notifying the originators of the uses to which it will be put. There are however some potentially important exceptions to this rule. For example, where material has been supplied by foreign governments under specific agreements permitting internal business use (e.g. of data for military purposes), this information may not be passed on and copyright remains with the supplier.
The consequences of this situation are multiple and, in some cases, quite subtle. It has facilitated extensive use of the Internet for data dissemination which in turn has both increased access to the federal geospatial data and shifted some costs of data acquisition to the end-user. However, the great bulk of financing for data collection in the US federal government necessarily arises from appropriations in Congress and the level and use of these line-budget funds are subject to short-term political expediency. In addition, the limited ability to protect information made available by others (especially commercial and some state governments), has made some inter-sectoral data sharing co-operations impossible or highly tortuous.
The situation in state and local governments varies considerably. Though many states have statutes enabling public free or low-cost access to certain types of records, there are at least twenty cases where states had or were in the process of amending these statutes to permit cost recovery through higher levels of charging. Masser (1997) provides a summary of various other studies on state and local government approaches.
Finally, given the strong US pressure to codify and enforce international copyright laws, it is no surprise that the US commercial sector strongly asserts its copyright on most occasions.
Unlocking information: the advent of national data use facilitation schemes
There is a growing tendency world-wide to seek greater value for money in relation to geospatial data or GI. There are many commonalities in these schemes, including the minimisation of duplication where the taxpayer is responsible for funding, the fostering of awareness of what already exists and the encouragement of greater harmonisation in data characteristics. None of this is recent. For example, co-ordination work at both national and state level in Australia and New Zealand long pre-dates recent initiatives. But the first national data use facilitation scheme advertised as such, thought through on a grand scale and promoted heavily was the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure; others have since followed (see Masser 1997, Mooney and Grant 1997). It is therefore necessary to summarise this before making contrasts with other schemes.
The US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)
The bulk of this section is drawn from a summary of the history of the NSDI by Tosta (1997). During the early 1990's, the Mapping Science Committee (MSC) of the United States National Research Council began to investigate the research responsibilities and the future of the National Mapping Division (NMD) of the US Geological Survey. The MSC coined the phrase ‘National Spatial Data Infrastructure’ and identified it as the comprehensive and co-ordinated environment for the production, management, dissemination, and use of geospatial data. The NSDI was conceived to be the totality of the policies, technology, institutions, data and individuals that were producing and using geospatial data within the United States. The MSC (1993) report proposed a number of actions and responsibilities for various agencies and for the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) which related to their vision of the NSDI whilst another report a year later urged the use of partnerships in creating the NSDI (MSC 1994).
The FGDC adopted the term NSDI to describe a ‘national digital spatial information resource’ and discussed the concept of the NSDI with the Clinton Administration teams which were exploring means to ‘reinvent’ the Federal Government in early 1993. The NSDI was recognised as an idea and a means to foster better intergovernmental relations, to empower State and local governments in the development of geospatial data sets and to improve the performance of the Federal Government. In September 1993, the NSDI was listed as one of the National Performance Review (NPR) initiatives to reinvent Federal Government. Vice-President Gore stated that ‘(I)n partnership with State and local governments and private companies we will create a National Spatial Data Infrastructure’ (Gore 1993).
One of the primary means of implementing the initiatives arising from the National Performance Review was through Presidential Executive Orders. In April 1994, Executive Order #12906: 'Co-ordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure' was signed by President Clinton, directing that federal agencies carry out certain tasks to implement the NSDI. These tasks were similar to those that had been outlined by the FGDC in its Strategic Plan a month earlier and since up-dated (FGDC 1997). The Executive Order created an environment within which new partnerships were not only encouraged, but required. In the US, Presidential Executive Orders are only applicable to federal agencies but, in this case, these agencies were directed to find partners (specifically among other levels of government). In practice, according to Tosta (1997), state and local governments will often voluntarily co-operate with federal agencies if this makes it likely to result in funding or improve their access to data. In addition, the Executive Order had significant effects in increasing the level of awareness about the value, use and management of geospatial data among federal agencies specifically. Perhaps more importantly, it raised the political visibility of geospatial data collection, management and use nationally and internationally.
The NSDI is defined in the Presidential Executive Order as ‘the technology, policies, standards, and human resources necessary to acquire, process, store, distribute, and improve utilisation of geospatial data’ (Clinton, 1994). That Order and the FGDC identified three primary areas to promote development of the NSDI. The first activity area is the development of standards, the second improvement of access to and sharing of data by developing the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse, and the third is the development of the National Digital Geospatial Data Framework. All of these efforts were to be carried out through partnerships among federal, state and local agencies, the private and academic sectors, and non-profit organisations. So far as standards are concerned, work began in 1996 to refine the initial FGDC metadata standard in conjunction with the International Standards Organisation. As of mid-1997, eleven different thematic standards were in development by FGDC committees with those on cadastral data and classification of wetlands being endorsed. The NSDI Executive Order mandated that federal agencies use all FGDC-adopted standards. A data ‘clearing house’ is operational: nearly all federal agencies, as well as most States and numerous local jurisdictions, have become active users of the Internet for disseminating geospatial data. This model does not necessarily assume that data will be distributed for free; obtaining some of these data sets requires the payment of a fee, others are free. Finally, various pilot projects investigating different ways of building the framework were launched in 1996 (FGDC 1997)
In its short lifetime, NSDI has generated huge levels of interest in the USA and beyond (see, for instance, Masser 1997). Some considerable successes have been achieved, notably in the formulation of some standards and the creation of the ‘clearing house’ of metadata. Perhaps its greatest success however has been as a catalyst, acting as a policy focus, publicising the importance of geospatial data and focusing attention on the benefits of collaboration - especially important in a country as large and governmentally complex as the USA. The process of involving many parties continues on several fronts; the MSC, for instance, has attempted to anticipate the most significant GIS developments to society in the period up to 2010 through a large and heterogeneous group drawn from many backgrounds (MSC 1997).
Inevitably, many problems have arisen in NSDI, notably about incentivising different organisations to work together and in ensuring that benefits arise for all organisations incurring costs. The level of direct involvement of the private sector seems small compared to that of the federal government and even that of the states. Moreover, the concept of ‘bottom up’ aggregation of data to form national data sets now being explored is also an intrinsically complex one since the logistics alone of drawing together data from many thousands of other organisations (e.g. US counties) - which vary greatly in resources and inclinations - is daunting. That said, NSDI has been and remains a considerable achievement (http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi2.html) and has triggered equivalents elsewhere, including multi-national collaborations, such as the Permanent Committee on GIS for Asia and the Pacific (Majid 1997).
Similarities and differences between the US and UK approaches
There are many similarities at a high level between the US and UK approaches to fostering greater beneficial use of geospatial data or GI. This is not surprising since the latter took account of developments in the former but both reflect some more generally-felt needs to improve the operation of the public sector and to get better value for money expended.
There are also however a number of important differences of emphasis. These derive from a number of sources, including the physical, cultural and political geographies of the two countries, and can be summarised as: