Interesting move by David Cameron last week on transparency and data.

He kickstarted the process with a public letter to every government department using data.gov.uk. Saying “Greater transparency across Government is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account; to reduce the deficit and deliver better value for money in public spending; and to realise significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites using public data.

To oversee the implementation of our transparency commitments, a Public Sector Transparency Board will be established in the Cabinet Office, which will be chaired by the Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude. Board representation will include a mix of external experts and data users, and public sector data specialists; members will include Tom Steinberg, one of the UK’s leading experts on data transparency. The Board will provide support to departments as they deliver on the Government’s transparency commitments set out in this letter. The Board will also be responsible for setting open data standards across the public sector, publishing further datasets on the basis of public demand, and – in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice – will further develop the Right to Data and advise on its implementation.

Issues of note include:

Local government is to be required to publish:

• New items of local government spending over £500 to be published on a council-by-council basis from January 2011.
• New local government contracts and tender documents for expenditure over £500 to be published in full from January 2011.

Interesting to see what the administrative burden of that will be (particularly if the administration is manual and new technology is not used effectively to manage the process). Equally interesting to see how quickly the requirement shifts to include the police service.

Other key government datasets to be included in the ‘transparency putsch’ include crime data which is to be published at a level that allows the public to see what is happening on their streets from January 2011.

Related posts:

1. ‘Public information does not belong to Government, it belongs to the public on whose behalf government is conducted’
2. Audit Commission flags the need for councils to face up to the new economic realities.
3. Holding the commissioners feet to the fire
4. Government to cut red tape for frontline public sector workers
5. Getting more for less – efficiency in the public sector