On behalf of 1,900 staff they:
- welcomed a government statement today that Ordnance Survey would not be privatised, contracted out, market-tested or set up as a public-private partnership
- warned the government to take staff concerns into account in assessing the call in an independent report for OS to be set up as a government-owned plc (GOPLC)
- urged ministers to improve pay and conditions for staff, as recommended by the report.

Elizabeth Jenkins, national officer for Prospect, the union for cartographic and specialist staff at OS, said: "This is a well argued report by independent consultants. It recognises that pay and conditions have been held down by the Treasury, and that this has damaged the Survey’s ability to modernise.

"None of this has prevented Ordnance Survey from maintaining its world-beating status in mapping. The need is to ensure that any future shake-up at the agency does not jeopardise that success."

Prospect and the Public and Commercial Services union called on the government to put staff concerns at the heart of its plans for reforming the agency. Jenkins cited difficulties over several elements in the GOPLC option, in particular the stress on individual pay awards, potential reductions in basic pay, loss of civil service status and the suggestion that OS should mount further mini-PPPs in separate divisions.

"Public servants want the public service ethos to be recognised by government in the way it carries out reforms, not just in words," Jenkins said. "In other words, pay awards should be fair, management should be consistent and ministers committed to OS’s success rather than experimenting with fashionable HR techniques."

Unions say that the bedrock of OS’s success is its database and cartographic/surveying skills on which its commercial future must depend. But Jenkins welcomed the report’s call that ministers should consult with staff about what they intend to do. Unions will make their case during Stage 2 of the quinquennial review into OS, to be carried out by Spring 2002.