Surveying Services and Mapping Data Updates

The contracting authority has a legal requirement (under Land Registration Act 2002) to create a Title Plan and IndexMap based on the latest edition of the Ordnance Survey map for the purpose of land registration. To enable the contracting authority to do this, Ordnance Survey will provide the contracting authority with the following Services: - Standard Surveys; - Tracked Surveys; - Check Surveys; - Priority Surveys; - MasterMap Daily Update Service; and - Feature Validation Data Set (FVDS)

Additional information: Ordnance Survey is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The services to be provided by Ordnance Survey Ltd (OS) under this agreement have been awarded to OS in accordance with Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) and Regulation 32(2)(b)(iii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 because OS is the sole provider of the services required due to technical reasons and due to OS's exclusive rights in respect of the MasterMap data.

OS currently creates and maintains MasterMap which is a unique asset. MasterMap is the only nationally consistent dataset for the whole of Great Britain that is updated constantly and to the standards required by the contracting authority. The ability to hold, manipulate and maintain MasterMap is restricted to OS who are a wholly owned government company. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy owns 100 % of the shares of OS.

Currently, no other company can supply the surveying services required to update MasterMap and all the necessary services required to create and maintain it. Rule 5 of the Land Registration Rules 2003 requires that title plan has to be based on an Ordnance Survey map. As the sole provider of MasterMap and the data contained in it, there is no reasonable alternative or substitute to OS available and the contracting authority has concluded that the further disaggregation of services is not possible. It would not therefore be possible for the contracting authority to conduct an open tender process as competition is absent for technical reasons.