Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information

The UK Location Strategy has been launched by the Geographic Information Panel to tackle problems from traffic management to flooding, improved policy formulation and decision making by using better geographical information, was launched by Baroness Andrews today in a report Place Matters: The Location Strategy for the United Kingdom.

The implementation of the Location Strategy will enable better risk management and better use of resources by introducing nationwide standards and support services for cataloguing information such as crime statistics, animal movements and disease information, air and noise pollution information and traffic congestion statistics.

The UK Location Strategy aims to simplify finding and using location data so that information can be accessed speedily to enhance decision-making.

Reducing the time taken to find, view, download and use location data the Strategy will also drive down costs and increase the ability to provide better public services.

Overall central government, local councils, police, the National Health Service, firefighters and members of the public will be able to access the information they need more efficiently, more quickly and with less expense.

Today, the Government published its pre-Budget report 2008.  Paragraph 4.54 in this report is relevant to the re-use of public sector information agenda. It says:

The HM Treasury/Shareholder Executive assessment of trading funds has considered the potential for innovation and growth from increasing commercial and other use of public sector information. It will shortly publish some key principles for the re-use of this information, consider how these currently apply in each of the trading funds and how they might apply in the future, and the role of the Office of Public Sector Information in ensuring that Government policy is fully reflected in practice. For the Ordnance Survey, this will involve consideration of its underlying business model. Further details will be announced in Budget 2009.

 

Information matters: building government's capability in managing knowledge and information sets out the responsibility that all Civil Servants have for managing the knowledge and information they create or handle.

The strategy's key aims are to:

• Improve the way government manages information as a valuable asset, ensuring it is protected, made accessible where appropriate and used effectively to inform decision-making and service delivery.
• Build a culture that shares knowledge more effectively, and builds capability in the handling of information of all kinds.
• Deliver this through developing the professionalism of knowledge and information management, through supporting governance, processes and technology.