Government announces Public Sector Geospatial Agreement with Ordnance Survey

The Geospatial Commission will be increasing the location data available to the public sector across England and Wales. Any public sector organisations ranging from health and emergency services, town, parish, and community councils through to central government departments can sign up via Ordnance Survey to use the data, free at the point of use.

The Public Sector Geospatial Agreement will be delivered by the national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey. It came into effect on 1 April 2020.
Thalia Brown, Director of the Geospatial Commission, said: “The Geospatial Commission was created in 2018 to make sure the UK maximises the opportunity location data presents for society, the economy and the environment.

“The new agreement meets our commitment to improve access to Ordnance Survey’s core data to start-ups, businesses and innovators. It means that the public and private sectors will have improved access to the accurate and detailed mapping data they rely on today to support even more innovative, efficient and effective delivery of public services.”

Steve Blair, Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey, said: “With this long-term investment, we can make our world-leading geospatial data even easier to access, use and share. It will enable us to capture and manage new levels of data which will support emerging markets, customers and innovation.

“Across Great Britain OS is helping to deliver value to thousands of customers, and I am looking forward to seeing how they will work with the new data to support their business and service delivery. I will be keeping an especially close eye on how new customers and start-ups innovate with the data to generate real economic value for Great Britain.”

From the 1 July 2020 businesses will be able to access, free up to a threshold, OS MasterMap data through a series of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

For further information see the Ordnance Survey PSGA home page