So, yes, from my perspective[1] I'd be perfectly happy for Royal Mail to take the PAF with them into privatisation. What I'd then like to see is the appropriate government department (not sure which it would be, but, given that the source of the data will be local authorities, probably the DCLG) take on responsibility for creating and maintaining a national geocoded database of structures. Alternatively, something derived from the Land Registry database would probably be equally useful.
This is very naive. What would happen is that the PAF would continue to be used by government and others, but tied to a now proprietary database, on which the owner can charge rent, and which was part of the assets transferred to the private entity. The best way of improving the quality of the PAF (not to mention all the other ancillary benefits) is to make it available as open data, so these quality issues can be identified, and addressed. Of course the goal should be to open up the NPLG, but this is not straightforward and will take considerable political will, precisely because it is tied up with the sort of private sector agreements that will ensnare the PAF if it isn't split away from the PAF. Chris -- ------------------------------------------------------- OpenCorporates :: The Open Database of the Corporate World http://opencorporates.com OpenlyLocal :: Making Local Government More Transparent http://openlylocal.com Blog: http://countculture.wordpress.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/CountCulture
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