 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The importance of GI was recognised by government in the 2001-2004 Programme for Government (PFG). The PFG provides a strategic overview of the NI Executive's work and demonstrates how policies and programmes delivered by government departments and agencies can be best combined to achieve agreed priorities. One action that falls under the PFG key principle of "securing a competitive economy" states that Northern Ireland will develop and enhance the mapping and geographic information structure by "developing a GI policy for NI by 2002." Mosaic is the brand name for the Geographic Information Strategy for Northern Ireland, an initiative being progress by Government through the Department for Culture Arts and Leisure, through its Agency, the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland. To build on the success of Mosaic and secure a future environment through which geographic information can be efficiently and effectively collected, collated, co-ordinated and shared, Mosaic will be working to take forward a number of initiatives that will remove barriers to ensuring this. Development of a Geographic Information Hub For Northern Ireland An emerging vision for Mosaic is that every Public Servant should be able to access the appropriate (geographic) information in order to facilitate policy development and evaluation, administration and service delivery, at the desktop, in a seamless way. Furthermore, the public should be able to view Government held information in an easy to understand way. Key to achieving the implementation of this vision will be the development of a GI Hub for Northern Ireland. This Hub could provide the technical and organisational Infrastructure to make Government held Geographic Information accessible and usable, by; Providing a basic mapping capability to Government departments with no existing GIS resources; Presenting a one-stop-shop for finding government geographic information; Hosting, or redirecting users to geographic information, such as government boundaries, which can be linked or downloaded by GIS users; Adding geographic content and facilities to public-facing web sites; Facilitating cross government bodies and interdepartmental working, such as the Regional Development Strategy, by providing geographic information to support their work; Organising and navigating to a wide range of government information sources through mapping and location search; Providing a hub for distributed web services, such as spatial analysis, geo-coding and address-matching, on behalf of government. The opportunity now exists, under the Mosaic banner to realise the full vision for a Geographic Information Hub for Northern Ireland. This section will be regularly updated,so if you want to be informed of updates, please email your contact details to |