A Local-State Government Spatial Data Sharing Partnership

A Local-State Spatial Data Sharing Partnership Model to Facilitate SDI Development
each partner normally reflects the potential benefits from the partnership and enables
governments to share the risk of project development and also reduce the upfront project
costs.
It is envisaged that the partnership model could be applied to possible government-private
data sharing partnerships with an appropriate shift in emphasis or priority. A significant
consideration on this form of partnership would be the potential loss of control over
information as the private sector seeks to value-add their initial investment. The
governance arrangements, partnership strategy and business rules and responsibilities
would form a key focus. Privacy concerns and liabilities on the use of government
information are issues that would require careful management. The model may need to
establish a stronger e-business component to allow for the auditing and accounting of each
party’s activities and contributions.
7.6.4 Section Summary
In summary, initial investigations of the application of the model to other jurisdictional
levels indicates that it could be applied across a variety of domains. In addition, it is
expected that as partnership efforts in spatial data sharing continue to expand, particularly
at the lower levels of government, the need for improved partnership management will also
grow. Other countries of federated states such as the United States and Canada are
excellent examples of the complexity of these environments. In the United States where
there are over 85,000 individual local government entities, and Canada where there are
approximately 4,500 local governments, the need for strongly managed local to state data
sharing models will be essential to SDI development.
7.7 Chapter Summary
This chapter has presented, applied and discussed the implications of a data sharing
partnership model. In the first instance the process of integrating the results from the state
cases studies and the local government surveys was described. The findings from the
previous two chapters were drawn together to identify a common core of issues and factors
that have formed the basis of the spatial data sharing partnership model.
A partnership model consisting of three core components was then presented and the detail
of each of the components was described. The model was then operationalised using the
original case study data and survey results as the basis for comparison. Next, the impact of
the model in facilitating SDI development was examined. This analysis re-affirmed the
importance of spatial data sharing partnerships in building the SDI as either a core
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