Archive for 'datastandards'
Cameron pledges to free our data
David Cameron has taken the Conservatives' promises on availability of public data a few steps further, in principle at least, in a speech at Imperial College on taking 'broken politics' into the 'post-bureaucratic age'. 'In Britain today, there are over 100,000 public bodies producing a huge amount of information,' he said; 'Most of this information [...] read on »
Tim Berners-Lee: the celebrity we need?
When Andrew Stott was appointed Director of Digital Engagement, I commented that it wasn't the 'rock star' appointment many of us had been led to expect. Well, the 'rock star' appointment came through yesterday, with the news that Sir Tim Berners-Lee as the government's 'expert advisor on public information delivery'. The Director position required evidence [...] read on »
BBC anger at DCSF data formats
BBC News website editor Steve Herrmann is not happy. In previous years, the Beeb site has carried full school league table data, as soon as the embargo is lifted at 09:30am. But not this year. 'This is because the government has tightened up on the media's pre-release access to official statistics,' he explains. 'In the [...] read on »
Stop what you're doing and sign up
I'm not sure I need to waste my time explaining why you need to go to TheyWorkForYou and sign up to MySociety's campaign to Free Our Bills - or rather, to have Parliamentary data marked up in mashup-friendly XML. Just compare 'proper' Hansard to TheyWorkForYou, and imagine the same process being done on all Parliamentary [...] read on »
Set the Census data free
One particularly difficult phase of my career was my time with National Statistics, in the aftermath of the 2001 Census. I tried, and ultimately failed, to persuade the organisation to recognise the tremendous asset they held in Census data, and to make wide public access a priority. I'm proud of some of the (relatively modest) [...] read on »
Cameron calls for data standards
Of all the topics I might have expected David Cameron to speak in favour of, standardised data formats was not top of the list. So I'm grateful to Nick Booth for pointing to Cameron's speech last Friday to the Conservative Councillors' Association. At the moment, local government bodies must provide the public with information about [...] read on »