Contractor Link Launches To Boost Government Spatial Data Sharing

Online, July 26, 2010 (Newswire.com) - A breakthrough mapping portal is set to transform the way UK local and central government organisations share spatial data with contractors.

Contractor Link enables local authorities and government agencies to give their contractors secure access to essential project data at no cost to the public purse.

The solution, available at www.emapsite.com/mapshop/services, is the first of its kind to be paid for by the contractor rather than the procurer and can be started as soon as any licensed map data is needed.

It follows research by the Local Government Association showing that local government alone spends around £3.5 million a year purely on managing and licensing geographic data to contractors.

Contractor Link has been launched by emapsite, a Premier Partner of national mapping agency Ordnance Survey and a supplier of data to thousands of regular clients in the contractor marketplace for more than ten years.

The solution gives contractors self-service access to all the collectively purchased mapping data licensed under the Mapping Services Agreement (MSA) for local government, the Pan-government Agreement (PGA) for central government and the OneScotland agreement for Scottish public sector bodies.

James Cutler, chief executive of emapsite, said: "As the Local Government Association has shown, local councils often face a labour intensive, costly and time-consuming process to share licensed mapping data with their contractors.

"Because of public spending cuts, many signatories to the collective agreements will be involved in budget freezes, resource constraints and efficiency drives, so they don't want to spend time and money on the administration of mapping for contractors. Contractor Link solves that problem at a stroke."

Once a contractor initiates Contractor Link, the procuring body is asked for approval and retains total control over data access in line with licensing rules.

The contractor then has instant access to the same data hosted by emapsite with the assurance that it is both correctly licensed and up to date.

The procurer is given a simple online management dashboard with full visibility of requests shown by project and contractor.
They simply click to approve or deny access backed by an easy to use audit record.

Mark Salter, Head of Partners and Strategic Alliances at Ordnance Survey, said: "emapsite have played a leading role in the evolution of geographical web services to meet the varying demands of both suppliers and customers.

"Contractor Link is the latest manifestation of this approach. It satisfies the need for licensees to comply with the terms of their collective purchase agreement and it helps sub-contractors with the timely supply of diverse data sets on a project and location specific basis.

"We fully anticipate that emapsite's Contractor Link service will lead to wider and deeper use of Ordnance Survey data licensed under the Mapping Services, Pan Government and OneScotland Agreements."

For more information about Contractor Link, contact [email protected] or call 0118 973 6883.

The Local Government Association identified the £3.5 million figure involved in managing and licensing contractors in its response to the CLG Consultation on Policy Options for Geographic Information for Ordnance Survey. See http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/9660309