Excerpts of the PM’s speech, given this morning, on Building Britain’s Digital Future:
Government opening up data: the background
But now we must use this technology to open up data with the aim of providing every citizen in Britain with true ownership and accountability over the services they demand from government.
And in doing so we can put in place the best most personalised but universally accessible digital public services in the world, and harness the power of technology to economise - shaking up Whitehall and making us the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world.
Building on the outstanding work Sir Tim and Nigel Shadbolt who have been leading on ‘making public data public’, I can now announce that we are determined to go further in breaking down the walled garden of government, using technology and information to provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall and give everyone more say over the services they receive.
In January we launched data.gov.uk, a single, easy-to-use website to access public data. And even in the short space of time since then, the interest this initiative has attracted - globally - has been very striking. The site already has more than three thousand data sets available - and more are being added all the time. And in the past month the Office for National Statistics has opened up access for web developers to over two billion data items right down to local neighbourhood level.
The Department for Transport and the transport industry are today making available the core reference datasets that contain the precise names and co-ordinates of all 350 thousand bus stops, railway stations and airports in Britain.
Public transport timetables and real-time running information is currently owned by the operating companies. But we will work to free it up - and from today we will make it a condition of future franchises that this data will be made freely available.
Ordnance Survey free data
And following the strong support in our recent consultation, I can confirm that from 1st April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use. Further details on the package and government’s response to the consultation will be published by the end of March.
Doomsday book for the 21st century / consultation on ‘Public Task’
And I can also tell you today that in the autumn the Government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies - a “domesday book” for the 21st century.
The programme will be managed by the National Archives and it will be overseen by a new open data board which will report on the first edition of the new domesday book by April next year. The Government will then produce its detailed proposals including how this work can be extended to the wider public sector.
To inform the continuing development of making public data public, the National Archives will produce a consultation paper on a definition of the “public task” for public data, to be published later this year.
The new domesday book will for the first time allow the public to access in one place information on each set of data including its size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality. And there will be an expectation that departments will release each of these datasets, or account publicly for why they are not doing so.
Free re-use of public data
Any business or individual will be free to embed this public data in their own websites, and to use it in creative ways within their own applications.
For example, Jobcentre Plus now offers a job search widget which can be put on any other website and a similar application for mobile phones.
And independent developers are using the information we’ve published for innovative new websites and mobile phone applications such as ‘asborometer’ - built by one person in just five days. It finds your position using GPS and tells you how many people have been served with an asbo in that area. When it launched last month it was the number one free application in the iTunes store after a reported 80,000 downloads in two days.
We’re determined that government websites should be efficient and meet people’s needs - easy to find, easy to use, and fully accessible. And in our relentless drive to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way we use websites to meet this goal, we have already closed 900 now unnecessary government websites, with plans to close nearly 500 more. And we will set new challenging standards of quality and accountability for government websites - including a requirement that each one allows feedback and engagement with citizens themselves. From today no new website will be allowed unless it fully meets these requirements….
By the end of the year, all public service contracts over 20 thousand pounds will be available on a single, free, easy-to-use online portal, and the data will be available free of charge for others to re-use.
The full speech can be accessed on the No. 10 website