Glossary
Agencies
In this report agencies includes all agencies which are, or are part of, government departments, except trading funds. Any non-departmental public bodies which are subject to Crown copyright may also be treated as agencies for the purpose of the recommendations of this report. (However, most NDPBs, which are set up to be at arm's length from government departments, are not subject to Crown copyright.)
Average cost pricing
For government information, this means basing prices on the total cost of all units, divided by the number of individual units, expected over a period of time, or over an expected volume of supply, such as the print run.
Class Licence
A class licence sets out standard terms and obligations enabling the reuse of a particular class or category of material
Crown Copyright
All material originated by Government is subject to Crown copyright protection under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. However, local authorities, and most non-departmental public bodies, are not part of Government for Crown copyright purposes. Copyright is effectively the mechanism which controls how people can re-use or copy material. This means that if anyone wishes to photocopy, publish, adapt, download onto a computer system or sell material which is protected by copyright, they need the consent of the legal copyright holder. Consent is usually in the form of copyright licence, except where the requirement for a licence has been waived.
Crown Copyright User Group
A group including representatives drawn from the information industry and other groups with an interest in using Crown official information.
Crown Copyright Waiver
Categories of material specified in the White Paper, The Future Management of Crown Copyright, on which the Crown asserts its copyright but waives it and which is not subject to formal licensing or payment.
Departments
UK Government departments which have Crown status. Government departments may be partly or wholly executive agencies or trading funds, but in the recommendations of this report, "departments" should be read as excluding trading funds.
Externality
An externality exists when the production or consumption of a good directly affects business or consumers not involved in buying and selling it and when those effects are not fully reflected in market prices.
Fixed costs
Those costs which do not vary with the level of activity in the short run.
Full cost pricing
Full cost pricing means that charges are set to recover the full resource costs of the activity. For government information, this would include the costs of collecting the information, assembling it, etc, as well as the costs of communicating the information.
Government Bodies
In the context of this report, this means those government bodies protected by Crown copyright.
HMSO
Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The responsibility for control and administration of Crown copyright rests with the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, an official appointed by the Queen and residing in HMSO, part of the Cabinet Office. (HMSO should not to be confused with the now private sector publisher, The Stationery Office Ltd.)
Information Asset Register (IAR)
A list of information resources held by the UK Government. Click the link below to access the IAR via the HMSO website.
External links
Licences
Copyright is infringed unless the copyright owner permits or licenses the use of any of the acts restricted by copyright. A licence is a permission by the copyright holder to reproduce or reuse the protected material. In the context of Crown copyright, licences may be used for the re-use of material which has been previously published in printed format or, for example, for access to data in electronic format (which may, or may not, also be published in printed format). It may apply to raw or value added information.
Marginal cost pricing
In economics, marginal costs are assumed to be the cost to society of supplying another unit, The long run marginal cost is the full extra cost (both fixed and variable) of providing a further unit of output. Long run marginal cost equals average cost where there are constant returns to scale. But when there are increasing returns as the scale of the operation increases long run marginal cost is less than average cost and to recover total costs it would be necessary to set prices to recover long run marginal cost plus the difference between that and average cost. Short run marginal cost measures how variable costs change when output alters.
For government information in the recommendation of this report covering departments and agencies (other than trading funds), marginal cost pricing relates to additional costs over and above those of collecting the information for the original government policy purpose. It covers costs, including costs of staff time, reasonably incurred in locating and retrieving the information, and giving effect to the requesters preferred medium for the reply (which could be different to that in which the department currently held it); and also the disbursements directly incurred in communicating the information, eg printing, postage etc.
Merit good
A merit good is a good that society thinks people should consume or receive, no matter what their incomes are, eg certain levels of shelter and food.
Public good
A public good is a good that has two characteristics. It is non-rivalrous ie even if it is consumed by one person, is still available for consumption by others, and it is non-excludable ie once it is supplied it is not possible to exclude anyone from consuming it. Clean air is an example.
Published information
Published information is material issued or distributed to the public in any format (even though in practice it may of interest to relatively few) whether free of charge or for payment. It can include both "raw data" and value added information.
Raw Data
Information collected, created, or commissioned within Government which is central to Government's core responsibilities. The supply of selected components of a raw data package, exactly as in the package is raw data supply, but the supply with further analysis, summarisation etc, or of data at a different level of aggregation to that used by Government, is not raw data for the purposes of this report but is value-added information.
Trading Funds
A trading fund is a government department, or an executive agency or part of the department, which has been established as such by means of a Trading Fund Order made under the Government Trading Funds Act 1973. A trading fund can only be established with Treasury agreement. One may only be set up where more than 50 per cent of the trading fund's revenue will consist of receipts in respect of goods and services provided by the trading fund, and where the responsible Minister and the Treasury are satisfied that the setting up of the trading fund will lead to "improved efficiency and effectiveness in management of operations". (These are statutory conditions.) The significance of a trading fund is that it has standing authority under the 1973 Act to use its receipts to meet its outgoings. Some trading funds have, as their main function, the collection and supply of information to both public and private sectors; others have not. A list of trading funds is given in Appendix D.
Value-added information (or data)
Where value is added to raw data enhancing and facilitating its use and effectiveness for the user, for example through further manipulation, compilation and summarisation into a more convenient form for the end-user, editing and/or further analysis and interpretation, or commentary beyond that required for policy formulation by the relevant government department with policy responsibility. It also includes supplying retrieval software, or where work on material is included as part of the compilation of related data, and where there is not necessarily a statutory or operational requirement for Government to produce the material.
Variable costs
Those which vary with the level of activity in the short run.
Wider Markets Initiative
The Government's policy on selling government services into wider markets. The policy is intended to make better use of existing government assets. A policy and guidance note was issued by the Enterprise and Growth Unit of HM Treasury in July 1998 (but Annex E on Freedom of Information and the Review of Crown copyright will need updating in the light of the outcome of this report).