UK plans to increase PSI re-use!
The UK Cabinet Office has published a press release titled: Prime Minister announces radical plan to protect frontline services by streamlining government .
The press release states:
The plans in Putting the Frontline First: smarter government include:
- Radically opening up data and public information, releasing thousands of public data sets – including Ordnance Survey mapping data, real-time railway timetables, data underpinning NHS Choices, and more detailed departmental spending data – and making them free for re-use.
The following documents have been published as part of the announcement:
- Putting the Frontline First: smarter government (Cm 7753, ISBN: 978-0-10-177532-8, 70 pages)
- Putting the Frontline First - Annex: Back Office Improvement Plans
- Benchmarking the Back Office: Central Government
- Benchmarking the Back Office: Central Government Annex A: Benchmarking data
- Operational Efficiency Programme: Asset Portfolio (ISBN 978-1-84532-663-0, 92 pages)
Extracts from page 25 & 26 of the document: Putting the Frontline First: smarter government state:
“1.3. radically opening up data and promoting transparency
Most recently, volunteers have updated base maps on the Open Street Map website to show where roads and bridges have been blocked by flooding or damage.
Data can also be used in innovative ways that bring economic benefits to citizens and businesses by releasing untapped enterprise and entrepreneurship. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt predict a significant increase in economic growth if more publicly held data are released for reuse. A study by the University of Cambridge found that the growth to the UK economy from freely releasing just a subset of the public sector data that are currently sold could be £160 million in the first year alone. And from a Cabinet Office pilot which involved better access to government data, developers were able to create new tools to better inform the public:
- Within a day of bike accident data being published online, it had been added to maps to help cyclists to make decisions about routes they take.
- After NHS dental surgery data went live, an iPhone application was created to show people the nearest surgery to any current location.
Public services are run and assessed on objective, non-personal ‘public data’ that are generated in the course of service delivery. The taxpayer has already paid for its collection, but does not always have the right to access it. Enabling access on the terms of our public data principles (see box) will create opportunities for third parties to develop innovations using free government data.
To enable this innovation, government must unlock much more data. These data have to be usable: the Power of Information Taskforce Report concluded that even where government data are currently available it can be hard to find, published in non-reusable formats or subject to licences which prevent access and reuse.
Within these guiding principles we will take the following actions to open up data and promote transparency:
Actions: opening up data and promoting transparency
We will release valuable public datasets and make them free for reuse. This will include:
- Releasing health data such as the NHS Choices data
- Consulting on making Ordnance Survey mapping and postcode datasets available for free reuse from April 2010
- Increasing access to and reuse of public transport data including the national Public transport Access node database, with information available to the development community by April 2010, providing live incident warnings and traffic camera images to googleMaps™ and increasing the number of gPs-enabled buses to cover 80% of journeys by 2015
- Opening Met Office Public Weather Service data to include: releasing significant underlying data for weather forecasts for free download and reuse by April 2010, and working to further expand the release of weather data, while recognising all public safety considerations; releasing a free iPhone application to access weather data by April 2010; releasing a widget that enables other websites to deploy Met office supplied weather information by April 2010; and making available more information on Met office scientists, their work and scientific papers, free of charge
- Publishing, by spring 2010, details of how the fiscal stimulus announced in the Pre-Budget Report 2008 has been spent, disaggregated to local level
- Launching a public consultation early in 2010 to seek views on how we could publish further financial data so that it is user-friendly and accessible, with a view to putting a live system in place by summer 2010
- Integrating ONS data with www.data.gov.uk from January 2010.
We will make government data accessible through a single access point at www.data.gov.uk, which will go live from January 2010 with over 1,100 central government datasets free for reuse, ranging from lists of schools to traffic volumes on the trunk road network.
We will encourage local government to release local public data and make it free for reuse, and establish an open-platform local data exchange. Professor nigel shadbolt will lead a local public data panel to ensure that data are linked effectively across local authorities, the local government Association, government departments and agencies.
We will create new ways for the citizen to interact with public services and public policy. By December 2010 we will extend user comment capabilities on nhs Choices to cover all health services, and we will publish key consultations online via the Directgov consultation index, with tools for interactive dialogue, enabling citizens to comment on draft legislative bills.
We will make a number of important technical improvements to public data: we will aim for the majority of government-published information to be reusable, linked data by June 2011; and we will establish a common licence to reuse data which is interoperable with the internationally recognised Creative Commons model.”
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The UK Cabinet Office Digital Engagement blog states:
“A major theme of "Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government" is radically opening up data and public information to promote transparent and effective government and social innovation.”
The Digital Engagement blog expands upon opening up local government data and states:
The Prime Minister said that "there are many hundreds more datasets that can be opened up - not only from central government but also from local councils, the NHS, police and education authorities."; and the Secretary of State for Communities said "we plan to give local people far better access to information held by local public organisations so they can challenge, compare or scrutinise their local services in order to drive up standards in their area."
The Government will encourage local government to release local public data and make it free for reuse, and establish an open-platform local data exchange. Professor Nigel Shadbolt from the University of Southampton has been asked to head up a panel of experts to oversee the release of local public data and ensure that data are linked effectively across local authorities, the Local Government Association, government departments and agencies.
The Local Public Data Panel members will include:
- Tim Allen, Programme Director for Analysis and Research, Local Government Association
- Roger Hampson, Chief Executive of Redbridge
- Dave Smith, Chief Executive of Sunderland City Council
- Janet Hughes, Head of Scrutiny and Investigations at the Greater London Authority
- Jos Creese, Head of IT at Hampshire County Council
- Nick Aldridge, CEO of Mission Fish UK (eBay for Charity)
- William Perrin - Government web innovator and community activist
- Chris Taggart - web developer and founder of OpenlyLocal.com
The Panel will work closely with local authorities, strategic partners, government departments and agencies, developers and community organisations to help improve local public services and empower citizens. The Panel will operate for a two year period to the end of 2011. It is expected to hold its first meeting in January 2010. Key aims are to:
- Ensure understanding of the case for making local public data freely available for re-use
- Promote innovative uses of local public data
- Sponsor the further development of a single place on line (‘data.gov.uk’)for all public sector data, while meeting the specific needs of the local government sector
- Encourage agreed standards for greater data and information sharing by local strategic partnerships.”
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