Economic issues in funding and supplying public sector information

In May 2005, a research team began to investigate whether designing and implementing a whole-of-government information licensing framework was possible. This framework was needed to administer copyright in relation to information produced by the government and to deal properly with privately-owned copyright on which government works often rely. The outcome so far is the design of the Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) and its gradual uptake within a number of Commonwealth and State government agencies. However, licensing is part of a larger issue in managing public sector information (PSI); and it has important parallels with the management of libraries and public archives. Among other things, managing the retention and supply of PSI requires an ability to search and locate information, ability to give public access to the information legally, and an ability to administer charges for supplying information wherever it is required by law. The aim here is to provide a summary overview of pricing principles as they relate to the supply of PSI.