Information on the Geographies of Scotland
Some geographic information is crucial to the operation of public services in Scotland. This type of information must be precisely defined and regularly maintained to ensure policy makers and receive the most accurate geographic information. This type of information is termed "key geographies". One of the objectives of One Scotland - One Geography is to,
"Ensure that key geographies for Scotland are made available, in the first instance by central government, to the public, private and voluntary sectors and to the citizen in the most cost-efficient and effective manner possible, consistent with best value".
Key Geographies are defined as "those physical, address or name based data that are required for government administrative functions, service delivery, legislation, research or publication of official statistics".
The Geography Technical Working Group have been mandated by the Geography Steering Group to develop a series of papers on key geographies. These are available to view below,
Part 1: Definitions and Inventory
Part 2: Data Acquisition and Management*
Part 3: Data Sharing*
Part 4: Metadata*
Part 5: Interoperability*
* Not yet complete.
A background paper has been produced to explain this process in more detail. A spreadsheet detailing what the key geographies and other geographies are and who is responsible for them is also available.