Corporate report

Geospatial Commission: Board of Commissioners meeting 22 May 2020

Published 31 July 2020

Geospatial Commission: Board of Commissioners meeting 22 May 2020

Tele-conference

Commissioners

Sir Andrew Dilnot (Chair)
Nigel Clifford (Deputy Chair)
Thalia Baldwin
Dame Kate Barker
Kru Desai
Edwina Dunn OBE
Steve Unger
Michael Mire
Steve Blair

Commission unit

Jamie Clark
Rosalind Goodfellow
Owen Jackson
Joe Cuddeford
Catherine Young
Wotey Tannoh
Abigail Page
Amelia Napier
Carol Hrynkiewicz

Observers

Albert King (Scottish Government)
Glyn Jones (Welsh Government)
Jim Lennon (Northern Ireland Executive)

1. Minutes and matters arising

The minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed and approved for publication.

Steve Blair and Michael Mire provided an update from the Partner Bodies, in their capacity as Nominated Commissioners. Partner Bodies’ feedback on the papers was noted, as was their ongoing contribution to the UK’s response and recovery from COVID-19.

Thalia Baldwin provided a report from the Geospatial Commission Unit, in her capacity as Director. Given the ongoing COVID-19 circumstances, Thalia confirmed that the Commission has made good progress on range of commitments since the last Board, including the signing of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) with a Memorandum of Understanding with Scotland extending the contract to all regions of Great Britain and the completion of the two National Underground Asset Register pilots. In addition, the Commission has continued its wider engagement, including the publication of links to key housing datasets in one place and blogs covering data correlation and COVID-19.

2. Delivery and management of Public Sector Contracts update

Jamie, Carol and Amelia presented on progress made to improve public sector access to core geospatial data. They updated on implementation of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) and Postcode Address File (PAF) Public Sector Licence (PSL) and outlined future options for public sector location data access.

The Board acknowledged the huge amount of work undertaken to sign the PSGA, which is a significantly more advanced data access agreement than the arrangements previously in place. They welcomed exploration of future opportunities for public sector access to key location data.

3. Geospatial Commission’s Programmes update

Owen updated the board on the status of the Commission’s range of planned and in-flight projects, and overall assessment of the programmes and contracts portfolios.

Over this period, the Commission has established a strong Portfolio Management Office to bring formal oversight, assurance and project/programme rigour, and support the Commission Director as Portfolio SRO and GC Accounting Officer.

The Commission’s programmes are organised under one portfolio, with three sub-portfolios mapping onto: FAIR Data; Skills, Capabilities and Awareness; and, Enabling Innovation.

The Board was encouraged to see how the programmes and projects are developing and how they align with planned strategic direction.

4. Geospatial use in COVID-19 response

Ros and Abigail presented a discussion paper on the Commission’s role and activities in support of COVID-19 response and future opportunities to support economic recovery. The Board noted that the Geospatial Commission is not responsible for providing an operational response to COVID-19 but welcomed the role the Commission has played in supporting the response through promoting efficient geospatial data use.

The Board was interested in the ethical debate about location data use raised by the COVID-19 response and in future innovative location data uses.

5. Any other business

There was no other business. The next meeting of the Board of Commissioners will take place on Tuesday 21 July 2020.