Policy sub-committee

Public right of access to geographic information is a constitutional right. It forms the foundation to our democracy and the basis for reconstruction and development. For this reason, the state has a responsibility to ensure fair and equitable access. Policy differences among various institutions hinder the distribution and access to spatial information. Generally speaking, access to information depends on the law, economics and culture as well as technology. Access to and pricing for, spatial information are of major concern to the Geographic Information (GI) community.

Chapter 2 of the constitution deals with the bill of rights. Amongst the rights that people are entitled to is the right of access to information. Access to information occurs when citizens are provided with information, to which they are entitled, upon their request. Section 32 (1) of the constitution grants everyone the right of access to (i) any information held by the state; and (ii) any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights. It must be emphasized that the supreme law of the land does not oblige any government department to offer the information free of charge. It also prohibits full cost recovery by information producer.  The Promotion of access to information Act provides for a reasonable fee in respect of access to information. However, what is reasonable for one may not be reasonable to another.

The policy sub-committee will address policy related issues. These include:

• Coherence in policies
• Pricing policies and cost models
• Policy on custodianship
• Process modeling
• Version control policy
• Use of data standards
• Security of datasets
• Development of a national policy
• Spatial information maintenance
• Information sharing
• Minimum IT infrastructure
• Accessibility and availability of spatial information

Liaison Sub-committee
Chapter three of the constitution deals with the principles of co-operative government and intergovernmental relations. It states amongst others that all spheres of government and all organs of state within each sphere must exercise their powers and perform their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographical, functional or institutional integrity of government in another sphere. This clearly indicates that duplication or overlapping of any form should be avoided. Section 12 of the SDI Act requires the committee to ensure that duplication of Spatial Information collection is avoided by providing access to their metadata records. The question is how does one avoid such duplications given the fact that organizations don’t normally communicate with each other? This sub-committee will coordinate and communicate activities of the committee to all spheres of government. Other responsibilities include:

• The development of a communication strategy
• Resolving conflicts
• Giving feedback to custodian in terms of level of services and clients requirements
• Identify and inform the committee on the absence of vital information for planning and development
• Inform the committee on issues of duplication
• Identifying projects and issues of common interest
• Informing the committee of all similar and or related initiatives and activities

  Technical Sub-committee

Section 11 of the SDI Act deals with adherence to spatial information standards. Standards are required to ensure interoperability. The sharing of data among government departments and other organizations is a vital necessity for a successful, long-term GIS. No single department or organization will be able to justify “going-their-own-way” and not taken advantage of what data are available from other sources or not sharing their data sets with other departments and organizations. It is important that we promote effective, efficient and economic use of use of resources as enshrined in the constitution.

The responsibilities of this sub-committee will include:

• The development and implementation of national standards
• Recommendation and implementation of international standards
• Development of product specifications
• Undertake national projects of common interest
• Development of tools of national interest
• Ad hoc projects and activities of national interest identified by the other sub-committees
• Evaluation of requests to capture spatial information from organs of state OTHER than data custodians

Conclusion

The effective functioning of these three subcommittees will hopefully ensure that maximum benefit is derived from investment in spatial information. Once the Committee has been formally established, will the Policy, Technical and Liaison sub committees resume their activities. These include: the development of the Information Flow Policy, the finalisation of the Custodianship Policy and attending to the activities related to the commencement of the SDI Act (Act no 54 of 2003) together with its Regulations.