This session at FOSS4G UK conference 2016 at the Ordnance Survey UK is aims to start the process of bringing together interested participants from government, industry and academia to discuss ideas on best practices in open source geospatial implementations, open data, open standards, opportunities for geo industry, migration to open source GIS ,economic benefits, accelerating innovation ecosystems , skills development and educational opportunities, creating highly skilled jobs, expanding startups and accelerating the digital economy. There is a need for having a national level strategy for enabling the public sector to save money, innovate and make more effective policy decisions.

1. “The need for National level strategy for
Open Principles in Geospatial”
Dr. Suchith Anand
University of Nottingham

2. Big picture
In the UK there are
433 principal authorities: 27 county councils, 55
unitary authorities, 32 London boroughs, 36
Metropolitan boroughs, 201 districts, 32 Scottish
unitary authorities, 22 Welsh unitary authorities,
and 26 Northern Ireland districts ,and every single
one of them are using GIS
So imagine the costs per year of taxpayers money
spend for buying proprietary GIS licences !

3. The need for cost savings
Open source GIS software will help the local
authorities and various government departments in
reducing huge licence fee costs for proprietary
software and the UK Government and taxpayers as
a whole will benefit from cost efficiencies, reduce
the cost of lock-in to suppliers and products.
This is especially important for future IT
investments (for example Cloud Computing) , so
that more options are explored and choices
available.

4. Why ?
Now imagine the costs for not one year costs but costs for 10
years , 25 years, 50 years from now etc. It will be in billions
of taxpayers money that should be spend for expanding
investment in schools, universities, healthcare etc NOT
keeping paying to buy high cost proprietary GIS licences
when there are now lot of open alternatives available and
many other countries are already doing this.
It will help also create and accelerate local innovation
opportunities in location based technologies and stimulate
local industry and accelerate new jobs creation in digital
economy for value added services building upon
technologies.

5. Geospatial
Standards (for
ex. OGC spec.)
Maturity of open
source software (for
ex. OSGeo stack)
Open Data
Ability for showing the
operation of general laws
is fundamental for
scientific research
Big Picture – Openness is key for innovation in GIS

6. Open Source strategy for the UK government (Jan 2010)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-source-open-standards-and-re-use-government-action-plan

7. Open principles is
now implemented
by the UK
Government and
delivering huge cost
savings for
government
£409 million in
the first half of
2013 alone
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/government-bodies-must-comply-open-
standards-principles

8. Open Data – key for innovation and transparency

9. Increasing software quality by
community peer review

10. Reuse big enabler for government
departments in cost savings and increasing
efficiencies

11. Some successful examples of transition from
proprietary systems to open source GIS in UK
government
These need to be replicated fast across UK
government departments to enable wider cost
savings and increasing efficiencies

12. Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2016/03/using-open-source-gis-in-
the-public-sector/

13. https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/case-
studies/warwickshire-county-council-new-web-gis.html
Warwickshire County Council

14. 1. How much (roughly) is the UK government (central/local government etc)
spending in buying properitery GIS licences for the last 10 years (2005-2015)? Is
there any plans for on savings target for the next 10 years ?
2. How many SMEs and jobs have been created in the UK through the creation of
Open Geo ecosystem in the last 5 years (open source geospatial software and open
data)?
3. What are the important steps needed for accelerating Open Innovation in
location based technologies for expanding the Digital economy opportunities for
the future.
Key questions?

15. RDA Geospatial IG and Geo4All
ThinkTank meeting on 8th June 2016
for starting the process of Open
Geospatial Science Vision 2030

16. Vision 2030
Science should always be open
Geospatial Science should be fully build on Open Principles
Transparency of research is fundamental (no black boxes or proprietary barriers).
Geospatial Science = Open Geospatial Science
Open Geospatial Labs are being established worldwide to scale up research and
teaching globally as part of the ICA-OSGeo MoU

17. We need an action plan for moving
forward
We are especially interested in examples of ideas and action plans from
local authorities to make use of open technologies (esp in GIS) for helping
reduce the high proprietary GIS licence costs as it is one of the biggest IT
expenses in GIS. So you can imagine the cumulative annual costs for the UK
government for keeping buying proprietary GIS . Now imagine the costs for
not just one year but in the future 5, 10 , 25 years.
This is especially important for Smart Cities programs and will help build an ecosystem
at the local level and help create big opportunities for industry, SMEs and startups in
the UK . This will create innovation opportunities locally.

18. In order to start this process, we will need to follow up ideas on the following:
1. Start collating casestudies of successful migrations from central and local
governments in the UK.
2. Bring together a team of key people to develop an action plan for National
level strategy for Open Principles in Geospatial. We will also link this to our
Vision 2030 for Open Geospatial Science[1]. Anyone interested to contribute on
this please email Suchith.Anand@nottingham.ac.uk
Next Steps
[1] http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2016/06/open-consultation-on-the-vision-2030-for-open-geospatial-science/

19. 3. There should be a vision to establish a National Centre for Open Government with
expertise in Open Technologies and Open Data to build best practices in open source
geospatial implementations in government and share ideas . There needs to be support
and training facilities available for the local GIS departments who are migrating to Open
Source GIS solutions. Investing in people is important. Scalability (without worring about
exponential increases in licensing costs) will also be a important factor in cost savings and
efficiencies. We already have dedicated Open Source Geospatial Labs in key research
universities in the UK who can provide the expertise needed.
4. Detailed study on how much (roughly) is the UK government (central/local government
etc) spending in buying properitery GIS licences for the last 10 years (2005-2015)? There
needs to be clear plans for savings target for the next 10 years ?
Next Steps

20. Thanks to all
participants, and wider
geospatial community
for the inputs