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Pricing policy

Introduction

The aim of the Met Office is to provide for the UK an effective, modern and efficient national meteorological service. With respect to pricing, its policy is to be fair and consistent such that it meets all legal and regulatory requirements whilst achieving the objective of its Framework Document to ‘maximise the financial contribution’ from profitable commercial outlets for services. This policy aims to achieve a fair balance between value for money for customers and a fair return to the Met Office.

This policy applies for all Met Office business, irrespective of whether it is Government, Commercial or International business.

Definitions

For the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005

Competed means any business that is, or has been, competed (through any form of competition) whether the funding comes from the private sector, local taxes (local authority), licence fees, international contributions (e.g. World Bank) or central government departments.

Competable includes any business:

  • From the private sector, local taxes (e.g. local authorities) or licence fee (e.g. BBC) that has not been competed.
  • With Government agencies where the activity lies outside their public task.
  • With central Government departments (or their Agencies) where we have knowledge that, although not competed, competition has been seriously considered or where it is likely that it will be competed in the near future due to pressure from other service providers.
  • With Government departments where it is deemed appropriate to the business model for it to be treated on a commercial basis.

Non-competed means any (tied) business with Government departments (or their agencies) where the activity contributes to delivery of their public task. This would be directly or indirectly funded from the vote, is not and has not been competed and which does not fall within the categories above. ‘Tied’ in this context refers to confirmed business over a period of years. Annual (renewable) contracts involve more risk to the Met Office and hence would justify a commercial level of mark-up that is higher than the standard Government level.

Information is defined as ‘any content, including any part of such content, whether in writing or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audio visual recording, other than a computer program’.

Public Task is defined for the Met Office as all activities funded by the Public Weather Service (PWS), previously known as the National Met. Programme and the Public Met. Service.

Public Task Information means for the Met Office, all information generated by the activities funded by PWS.

Information required by or from another government organisation may be ‘public task information’ if it exhibits one or more of the following features.

  • It is essential to the business of the public sector
  • It explains the policy of public sector bodies
  • It sets out how the law, in both the UK and the EU, must be complied with
  • The citizen will consider the information to be key to their relationship with the public sector
  • There may be a statutory requirement to produce or issue such information
  • It enjoys an authoritative status by virtue of its issue by the public sector

Re-use means 'the use by a person of Information held by a public sector body for a purpose other than the initial purpose within that public sector body’s Public Task for which the information was produced'. Providing Information in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, is not normally re-use.

Data, products and services provided by the Met Office are categorised as follows:

  1. A: Raw Data — defined as all real time meteorological information that results from the transformation or processing of data in the form of pictures, charts, text or data files, and has been prepared specifically to meet the operational requirements of a national meteorological service.
  2. B: Added-Value Products — all real-time and archived observational data, and real-time and archived output from the numerical weather prediction system which has undergone automated quality control and/or automated meteorological processing, e.g. coded observations, gridded binary NWP data sets; all routine products of the Public Meteorological Service; all fixed-priced products available from the Met Office Data Catalogue.
  3. C: Commercial Services — customer services where value has been added to data by the application of expertise and knowledge from within the Met Office and/or its partners in the form of non-meteorological processing, to meet the needs of specific customers. Details are available from the Customer Centre on request.

The Met Office’s public task information includes Category A (Raw Data) and Category B (Added-Value Products).

Legislation and regulation

The Met Office operates within all relevant and applicable legislative and regulatory requirements (be they mandatory or self-regulating codes of practice). These include, but are not restricted to:

  • The Competition Act 1998 and similar EC obligations contained in Articles 81, 82 and 86 of the EC Treaty.
  • Freedom of Information Act 2000
  • Environmental Information Regulations 2004
  • Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005
  • Information Fair Trader Scheme of the Office of Public Sector information (OPSI)
  • Data Protection Act 1998
  • Trading Fund accounting rules
  • ECOMET Licence Conditions
  • World Meteorological Organization Resolution 40 (Cg Xii)
  • Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex III
  • ICAO Document 9161 — the Manual of Air Navigation Service Economics
  • HM Treasury guidelines
  • Customer Supplier Agreement between the Met Office and the Ministry of Defence 2006
  • Crown Copyright Delegation of Authority between HMSO and the Met Office 2006
  • British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing 2003

Pricing

Raw data

Raw data is licensed without charge. However, handling and delivery costs are payable, including distribution, media, documentation, transmission and direct labour costs. Redistribution of data is permitted under specific licence conditions available from the Met Office Data Manager.

Where Raw data are required as input to the Met Office's services which are not part of the Met Office’s Public Task or the public task of other public bodies, they are supplied internally within the Met Office on the same terms and conditions as apply to external customers.

Added-Value Products

Added-Value Products are licensed at prices as published in the Met Office Data Catalogue plus handling and delivery costs. Redistribution or resale of Added-Value Products is permitted under specific licence conditions available from the Met Office Data Manager.

Certain Added-Value Products are licensed without charge on request:

  • For agencies to meet international obligations
  • For research or educational purposes

Data within the Added-Value Product category are priced to recover a share of the Met Office’s infrastructure cost.

Where Added-Value Products are required as input to the Met Office’s Commercial Services which are not part of the Met Office’s Public Task or the public task of other public bodies, they are supplied internally within the Met Office on the same terms and conditions as apply to external customers.

Commercial Services

Competed Commercial Services are priced on an individual basis, dependent upon the nature of the service and the requirements of the customer. These guidelines apply equally to public sector and private sector customers, in cases where the contract is awarded through competitive tender.

Commercial Services are priced at a fair market value, ranging from standard services positioned for entry level/basic requirements to high quality, premium-price services exhibiting demonstrable financial or non-financial benefit. Prices should be set to reflect customer benefits relative to current market conditions, the competitors’ services and how the market is expected to develop, subject to the factors listed below.

The strategies and decisions for pricing individual Commercial Services will depend on many factors including:

Market factors

  • The position in the market the Service needs to hold (including consideration of the Met Office brand), its benefit to the customer (financial or other), the stage it is at in its lifecycle, and how that fits in with business/marketing objectives.
  • Market conditions, including current and predicted prices and volumes, competition, both existing, potential and indirect competition or substitution.
  • Customer attitudes and perceptions
  • The general economic situation.

Policy frameworks

  • HM Treasury guidelines on price setting
  • Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005
  • Existing data policy frameworks
  • VAT regulations

Services provided to civil aviation are regulated by the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex III. Prices for these services are set in accordance with the guidance provided by ICAO in document 9161 — the Manual of Air Navigation Service Economics. Services provided which do not fall under Annex III are treated as competed Commercial Services for the purpose of pricing.

Costs

The costs associated with the product or service itself, including but not limited to:

  • Development costs
  • Set-up, running and exit costs
  • Overheads, including costs of data, infrastructure, sales, marketing, support and maintenance, system costs.
  • Any additional considerations in the case of multiyear contracts, including infrastructure upgrade and capacity effects.

Miscellaneous factors

For example, the level of service resilience, contingency and back-up offered as part of the package:

  • Approved sales promotions and incentives
  • Market risk factors
  • Risk and reward pricing options
  • Any foreign currency related costs, including performance guarantees and exposure risk

The internal charge for data provided by the Public Weather Service to Commercial will be treated as an overhead, with the cost apportioned appropriately between all the services they provide.

Data licensing terms and conditions

Where Raw Data or Added-Value Products are licensed as part of a competed Commercial Service, the overall price may reflect the purpose and the permitted uses agreed in the licence terms between the Met Office and the customer. The following types of commercial licence will attract additional fees.

  • Re-licensing the Service to another or others
  • Use of the Met Office’s trade marks and/or logos
  • Redistributing the Service to a subsidiary or parent company
  • Storing/archiving products for re-use — consideration should be given to the length of time the archive is to remain in use.

Prices for these types of licences should be applied for on a case by case basis.

Non-competed services

The Met Office, in its role as the national meteorological service, provides a range of non competed services to other public sector bodies. These services account for the majority of Met Office revenues. Such services are priced on cost plus basis following procedures agreed with the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and the respective customer. Where these services are for non public task activities, the terms and conditions for use of any Public Task Information used as input to the services are the same as those that would apply to external customers for use of the same Information for comparable purposes.

Fair play statement

The Met Office will continue to price its competed Commercial Services fairly to customers, using a fair market value such that the Met Office can maximise the offset to tax payers’ funding through its commercial activities.

Within any specific UK market sector, the target price for identical products and services will be the same, but subject to individual customer negotiation around this target price.

The policy for discounts, any exceptions or exclusive arrangements, and details of Information for which Re-use needs special permission, will be published on the Met Office’s website.

When any Public Task Information is included in a licence, or used as input to a Commercial Service, then the terms and conditions under which that Information is made available will be available to any customer for use for comparable purposes, unless provided solely for the public task of another public body or other special cases.

There are exceptions to the general principle of openness and releasing information for any purpose. These include:

  • If there is a possibility of such re use misleading the public
  • Information which is exempt from release under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
  • Material subject to other IPR such as design rights
  • Material which is not solely Crown copyright

Complaints

Any complaints regarding Met Office pricing should in the first instance be addressed to the Customer Feedback Manager at the Customer Centre. The Met Office takes its commitment to Fair Trading extremely seriously and will respond in the first instance to any complaint over pricing within seven working days.

If you are not satisfied with the response provided, please inform the Commercial Business Director, via the Customer Centre.

If you are still unhappy following an internal review, and the complaint relates to a licensing decision, you may take your complaint to the Controller of HMSO/Director of the Office of Public Sector Information, see the website www.opsi.gov.uk.