The government is releasing ever more data for public use, routinely through data.gov.uk and in response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests but, as we've said here before, making the data available is only the beginning of the story, and a good one.
This raw data is just that – raw and unformed (and not to be confused with statistics: the organised and analysed information for which datasets provide the unprocessed material).
We want to give non-profit organisations, entrepreneurs and developers – the ingenious people who will interpret this data – all the help we can to work their magic. It is they who will perform the alchemy of turning this base metal into the gold of programmes, apps and services as yet unthought of, creating new businesses, helping existing ones to grow, fostering growth and providing an extension of public services.
With this in mind, the Protection of Freedoms Act, which received royal assent on 1 May, includes a datasets release clause that amends the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It places a new requirement on public authorities to release data in a standardised reusable format, whether in response to FOI requests or through routine publication schemes.
The intention is to make FOI a one-stop process, so that anyone requesting the release of information from a public authority will not have to make a separate request in order to reuse a dataset.
As the minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has said: this change takes the government's right-to-data initiative into a "new dimension of transparency", from the simple – though fundamental – provision of access to data, to making it easier to manipulate and reuse in smart and productive ways not foreseen when it was collected.
What we have in mind is many more examples as innovative and useful as, to take one example, Parkopedia, a small UK-based business that uses live data from local authorities to help drivers identify free car parking spaces. Now used by millions of drivers, it has grown to become the world's leading source of parking information covering more than 20m car park spaces in 25 countries.
As well as facilitating the exploitation of datasets by businesses, non-profit organisations and others for social and commercial purposes, the changes made in the Protection of Freedoms Act will support our commitment to open up government to greater public scrutiny and help to deliver better value for money in public spending.
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