Written question asked by Jonathan Sayeed (Conservative) on Wednesday, 4 February 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 21 June 2004. It was answered by Yvette Cooper (Labour) on Monday, 21 June 2004 on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Question: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, whether the Pan Government Agreement for Central Government to use Ordnance Survey data was open to fair and transparent competition.

Answer: Mr. Sayeed: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether the Pan Government Agreement for Central Government to use Ordnance Survey data was open to fair and transparent competition. [153758] Yvette Cooper: The 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 EC public procurement directives. The success of an initial one-year pilot of the PGA led the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee in their tenth report to state: "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.

Secondary information