§ Mr. Boris JohnsonTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what factors underlay the decision to use uncompleted Ordnance Survey data in the Pan Government Agreement for Central Government. [148480]
§ Yvette CooperThe Pan Government Agreement (PGA) is a non-binding internal arrangement between two Crown bodies, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Ordnance Survey (OS). Accordingly, the PGA is not a contract necessitating competition through prior advertisement in accordance with the European Commission public procurement Directives.
The PGA has been a tremendous success, increasing the number of central government organisations utilising geographic information from 40 to in excess of 120. Without this, it would be impossible to deliver on 2005 Modernising Government targets or to offer many citizen-based services. The success of the pilot of the PGA was noted by the Transport Local Government and the Regions Committee's tenth report on the OS, which contained the following statement:
The Committee recommends that the Government provides funding for a long-term Pan Government Service Level Agreement to ensure widespread use of Ordnance Survey data across Government, so as to ensure the Government gets the best value for money. This should be done by the start of the 2003–04 financial year.In comparison to the cost of previous agreements and the much more limited use of geographic information they provided, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister believes that the PGA offers very good value for money for government.