Corporate report

Geospatial Commission: Board of Commissioners meeting 27 September 2022

Published 2 December 2022

Geospatial Commission Board of Commissioners’ Meeting Minutes, 27 September 2022

Google Meet, 11.00 - 13.30

Attendees Commissioners: Bernard Silverman (Chair), Nigel Clifford (Deputy Chair), Thalia Baldwin, Louise Heathwaite, Steve Unger, Alex Notay

Nominated Commissioners: Karen Hanghøj & Stephen Lake (for Peter Sparkes)

Commission Unit: Jamie Clark, Chris Chambers, Joe Cuddeford, Ros Goodfellow, Ben Carson, Simon Corbridge, Steven Sibbald, (Minutes by: Aftab Khan)

Observers: Alan Corbett (Scotland), Glyn Jones (Wales), Jim Lennon (Northern Ireland), Fiona James (ONS)

Apologies: Peter Sparkes

External speaker: Thomas Knights (Director, Brand and Marketing, Strava Metro) (Item 6 only)

1. Minutes and Matters Arising

The July board meeting minutes were agreed with no changes. No other matters were noted.

2. Report from the Nominated Commissioners

Stephen Lake and Karen Hanghøj gave a summary of the points raised at the Nominated Commissioners’ meeting on 21 September which included:

• Awareness of geospatial in other industries and market segments is the most important trend to acknowledge and the area of greatest opportunity from the Partner Bodies’ perspective. The Partner Bodies are keen to further explore how we can engage and build consensus with Chief Data Officers across the different industry segments as well as exploring the power of geospatial within digital transformation and unlocking new productivity opportunities and impact within the broader economy in the UK.

• The Partner Bodies identified that they would benefit from sharing experiences and learning from each other and those beyond the Geo6 in relation to large-scale digital transformations. In particular, back office processes and cultural elements that are so important but rarely discussed with digital transformations were highlighted. It was suggested that the Partner Body Strategy Group, chaired by the Geospatial Commission, would be a place to continue discussing deep dives around large scale digital transformations and were keen to work collaboratively to support this.

• Karen thanked Thalia and the team for the recent input into the internal review that the BGS was undertaking. The BGS, along with all of the other Partner Bodies, is keen to contribute to the continued development of the UK Strategy and would welcome ongoing engagement in the Commission’s strategy refresh work.

3. Geospatial Strategy Refresh Update

Ros Goodfellow and Ben Carson presented a paper on a proposed approach to updating the UK’s Geospatial Strategy, including the publication of a call for evidence and other engagement activities

The Board discussion covered the following areas:

• Progress made towards delivery of the vision of unlocking the power of location, including lessons learnt so far.

• The significant amount of technological advancements and changes in the national and global context since the initial strategy was published in early 2020.

• The benefits in looking beyond the traditional geospatial ecosystem, including consideration of how the engagement approach, including the call for evidence, could be expanded to capture those organisations and stakeholders that may not class themselves as geospatial in the traditional sense, but who are disrupting the geospatial supply chain through innovation.

• Recognition of the value and importance of geospatial skills within the wider data and digital skills area.

The board thanked Ros and Ben for the paper and discussion and looked forward to coming back to this at future meetings.

4. Public Sector Geospatial Agreement: Headline Deliverables for 2022/23

Jamie Clark, Simon Corbridge and Steven Sibbald introduced the paper on the progress to date on the delivery of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) including the remaining delivery milestones. The board was pleased to see the impact the PSGA was having in supporting the public sector in responding to challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, realising new opportunities around transport, capacity building, and enabling user success.

Discussion covered the following areas:

• Proposed development of the Cadre programme, suggesting a stronger emphasis on skills transfer in addition to the outcomes delivered as per the current projects.

• Raising awareness of the programme across government.

• Jim Lennon raised the growing demand for Northern Ireland data within the public sector in Great Britain.

• Glyn Jones highlighted that for Wales to be able to fully take advantage of the educational provisions within the PSGA materials would need to be provided in both English and Welsh languages.

• The board considered engagement with the health sector and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on demand. Glyn confirmed that there was an increased uptake in Wales but it was not as rapid or as widespread as it was hoped it could be yet. Jamie confirmed this was being reflected in the rest of GB as well.

5. External speaker: Thomas Knights (Director, Brand and Marketing, Strava Metro)

Thomas joined the meeting and provided an overview of Strava Metro, which is a dataset that is the largest collection of human-powered transport information in the world. Metro aggregates, de-identifies and contextualises this dataset to help make cities better for anyone on foot or on a bike. Strava works with urban planners, city governments and safe-infrastructure advocates to understand mobility patterns, identify opportunities for investment and evaluate the impact of infrastructure changes,all free of charge for the public sector.

The board thanked Thomas for a really interesting presentation.

6. Any Other Business

Chris Chambers provided an update on the draft NUAR consultation response.

The next board meeting will take place online on 29 November 2022.