Ofcom’s Postcode Address File consultation - update

(Internal review response now received - see updates below.)

Post: 15 March 2013

A brief update on my post of last month, re the key figures redacted from Ofcom’s Postcode Address File consultation:

Royal Mail has also rejected my Freedom of Information request for the PAF cost stack figures, on the basis that they are commercially sensitive. RM maintains that on balance “the public interest in protecting the commercial interests of Royal Mail Group outweighs that of disclosure.”

Quelle surprise, right?

The Ofcom consultation closes next week. In related developments:

• the Open Data Institute has submitted a response urging open data release of PAF as part of a free National Address Dataset,
• the Open Data User Group has also submitted a (quite strongly worded) response,
• BIS, which is currently the main Royal Mail shareholder, has responded to an Open Rights Group campaign e-mail on the same issue,
• the PAF Advisory Board held an open meeting (slides), and
• Royal Mail and BIS have announced a new Public Sector Licence for PAF, which rather looks like a spoiler for the Ofcom consultation and/or the open data campaign.

Further update: 18 March 2013

I’ve now sent a letter to Royal Mail requesting a review of its FOI response, with an argument that it has insufficient grounds for relying on the commercial interests exemption and has also applied the public interest test incorrectly.

Further update: 16 May 2013

Royal Mail has now replied to my request for an internal review of its FOI response. It’s quite long but Royal Mail do not seem to have presented any new arguments of substance.

I do hate to trouble the Information Commissioner, but …

Further update: 12 September 2013

I referred this request to the Information Commissioner on 28 May. However I have had no response of substance and, as Royal Mail is scheduled for privatisation ‘within weeks’, am not now hopeful of a resolution.