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Shirley not? I'll give that it's just a suggestion in the article, I have no evidence as to it's veracity. But surely this cannot be good for the mapping of britain? yes the hold country is mapped, but it wouldn't take all that many years and a healthy dose of privitised negligence to render os maps useless?
What d'ye think?
based on the quality of the Russian Military mapping of the UK I would sell it too them
OS seems more detailed to me...plus it's much handier having them in English! 😆
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Considering how much of a commercial enterprise OS is, I doubt anyone would actually notice.
Commercial aye, but dedicated to the task of mapping the whole uk. What if a private company takes over and only continues to map the profitable bits..
tbh the commercialisation of everything pisses me right off in general, and I really like OS maps, so i'm pretty against it. I really don't understand why eveything has to be monetised.
Yeah what next the forests!!
Don't forgot all the lies and @R$e covering when things go wrong, standard corporate responses "management new nothing and have learnt from past mistakes, scapegoated some lowly 5h!t suckers and re-trained the rest so it won't be as easily detected in the future! Not to mention fraud when securing public funding. I have met peeps who work for private sector enterprises supplying public services, they fudge the figures all the time! surprise surprise eh.
Privatisation might give OS a bit more latitude
It's not the privatisation as such that's wrong, it's the fact government has a really poor record in regulating privatised companies.
seosamh77, everything is monetised, it's the result of being in a broadly capitalist economy.
Privatisation might give OS a bit more latitude
😆
@OP, I hope it's not the case though, I really like OS maps.
<Pedant alert> It's Ordnance Survey - not Ordinance...</pedant>
There's a lot of very useful free digital mapping available through the OS on the Open Government licence - can't see that remaining if privatised. Which would be like going back to 5 years a go when data was very expensive (before when the Guardian pushed very hard for our data to be free).
Well, they already have commercial competition, how have they behaved? TBH if I could get opencyclemap on my Garmin I'd use OS very very rarely other than in paper form.
What are the actual big cash cows for OS?
Virgin maps?
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Classic Tories - taxpayer funded for decades, with the public unable to freely access the data they generate. Then sell it off so a private company can sell the public the data.
Pedant alert> It's Ordnance Survey - not Ordinance...</pedant>
Indeed it is. I do like the fact it's Ordnance as in artillery as the mapping was done so that the gunners could be more accurate much like our charting if the world's seas was for naval use.
The OS is great I am a huge fan so I am somewhat concerned that any change could be for the worst. That needs to be set against the fact that as a country we need to look at cost savings and asset sales to balance the books.
Why does the OS need to be in public ownership?
It has a great client base including the gov, corporates and Jo Public
(Its a data company, not a mapping company BTW - maps are @5% revenues)
Its profitable and financial self sufficient
What role does the government play? Are government contracts delivered on a commercial basis?
teamhurtmore - Member
Why does the OS need to be in public ownership?It has a great client base including the gov, corporates and Jo Public
(Its a data company, not a mapping company BTW - maps are @5% revenues)
Its profitable and financial self sufficientWhat role does the government play? Are government contracts delivered on a commercial basis?
Why "fix" with privatisation that that's not broken?
<Pedant alert> It's OS or Ordnance Survey - not The Ordnance Survey or the OS...</pedant>
based on the quality of the Russian Military mapping of the UK I would sell it too them
All the Nato forces used Russian Maps in Afghanistan....
OS recently changed to a govco...
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/about/governance/foi/questions/2015/14.html
no disclosed plans to privatise.
All the Nato forces used Russian Maps in AfghanistanNot true
[quote=footflaps ]All the Nato forces used Russian Maps in Afghanistan....
Well they did spend a while there...
teamhurtmore - Member
Why does the OS need to be in public ownership?
If it's loss making no company will touch it without ruining it, if it's profit making it's an income stream to a government desperately looking for income.
Why does the OS need to be in public ownership?
I've not given it much thought (as I may be about to demonstrate) but it strikes me that there may be a similar argument as the one about the universal post - you know, that you can send a letter from Lands End to a far flung remote part of Scotland for the same price as just round the corner, and won't the private sector just stop doing that? Same as the argument against de-regulating the buses, trains etc as well.
The OS equivalent would be, you'd still be able to get the 1:25,000 of Windermere, but maybe not the one that covers somewhere less touristy...
The old argument would be, is it to provide a service, or make a profit? With government owned "businesses", I'm not sure the same distinction can be made as clearly these days tbh
dlong - Member
Why does the OS need to be in public ownership?
I've not given it much thought (as I may be about to demonstrate) but it strikes me that there may be a similar argument as the one about the universal post - you know, that you can send a letter from Lands End to a far flung remote part of Scotland for the same price as just round the corner, and won't the private sector just stop doing that? Same as the argument against de-regulating the buses, trains etc as well.The OS equivalent would be, you'd still be able to get the 1:25,000 of Windermere, but maybe not the one that covers somewhere less touristy...
The old argument would be, is it to provide a service, or make a profit? With government owned "businesses", I'm not sure the same distinction can be made as clearly these days tbh
The other argument, if you look at it from a purely financial stand point is is why take a one off payment + only a percentage of the profits (that you have to drag out) and opposed to the whole of the profits.
Not an argument i'm in particular favour of, I'm very much of the belief that there should be a certain core of services that are sacrosanct and aren't particularly run on a profit basis. if they make a profit, fair enough, but it shouldn't be their main goal.
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What are the actual big cash cows for OS?
Mastermap
Do OS have any requirements on how up to date they keep their maps, especially in the lesser visited bits of the country?