Blog post by Alan Howie, Data Architect.

What is OSMA and how are we involved?

Earlier this month a group of us attended the OSMA summit, a yearly event which brings together all the government organisations that use Ordnance Survey mapping, and addressing data within the One Scotland Mapping Agreement.

This year’s event was once again held at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. There was a great turn out on the day with 80+ delegates from councils and government organisations in attendance, all interested in the latest datasets being made available through OSMA.

Mission statements, mapping data and more

Ordnance Survey hosted the data and opened the conference. They gave an update on their priorities in the coming years and later in the day discussed some of the new mapping products that will be available via the OSMA agreement.

Next up was William Priest from the Geospatial Commission. The Commission have been created by the UK Government to find better ways for public organisations to share and reuse mapping data. William discussed their mission statement and roadmaps. In the afternoon they had a breakout session looking for suggestion on how we innovate with spatial data.

Planning is an area that has lots of synergy with our work at Registers of Scotland and Liz Pringle was up next to give an update on a major Scottish Government initiative to centralise planning applications. The project is still in the early stages but it was interesting to see initial findings. Her Scottish Government colleague Shona Nicol also explained the latest changes to OSMA datasets and licensing.

ScotLIS on show at the summit

Finally, just before lunch, our very own Calum Shepherd (Service Owner for ScotLIS) gave a 10-minute overview on all things ScotLIS, which going by the feedback at the stand, was very well received.
While the talks went on, RoS had a stand which was busy through the day, especially after Calum’s talk over lunch.

Sara Hubbert (ScotLIS’s new Business Development Officer) and Alastair Reid (Data Product Owner) both excelled on the stand, fielding a staggering variety of Land Registration questions from a very knowledgeable and engaged delegation. The day concluded with a reception, seeing data, licencing, land registration and maps discussed over a refreshment or two.

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