No time to post much here today apart from to point to the new UK government data website – www.data.gov.uk – as described here. There are plenty of data sets that allow you to browse geographical data and find out different information about local schools and other services.
There’s also a good section in which Sir Tim Berners-Lee explains what the semantic web is in fairly straightforward terms.
View it here, by all means, but do visit the site as well if you can?
For me, the most exciting bit is that it allows people to see things in new ways and conceptualise problems differently. Poor policy-making costs us a fortune and results in missed opportunities. I’m not sure that Brian Hoadley fully gets this when he says:
“I’ve been waiting for Joe Bloggs on the street to mention in passing – “Hey, just yesterday I did ‘x’ online” and have it be one of those new ‘Services’ that has been developed from the release of our data. (Note: A Joe Bloggs who is not related to Government or those who encircle Government. A real true independent Citizen.)
It may be a long wait.”
Meantimes, here’s Stuart on Lichfield’s data and what it adds to the knowledge of local authorities about their own area, as well as our knowledge about our local authorities.
Community Secretary John Denham, believes local authorities are at the heart of this agenda, allowing 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.
To support this ambition John Denham has established a panel of experts from local government and the IT developer community.
This Local Public Data Panel will help Government develop comparable measures for local government services to be published for consultation in spring 2010.
It will champion the release of local public data and information sharing, accelerate progress in agreeing common standards for data released into the public sphere, and for making local public services better understood and more accessible.
The Panel’s commission lasts for two years. It is chaired by Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Deputy Head (Research) of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
Local Public Data Panel members are:
• 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 agreed that over the coming weeks and months they will work closely with local authorities, strategic partners, government departments and agencies, developers and community organisations to decide the right datasets from recycling data, street works, planning applications, parking fines and housing information to be published.