From Conor O’Neill:
“Expecting the public service to build webapps for us is a fool’s errand. They would spend €100m, take five years and it wouldn’t work when it was finished. However, if they make each department’s data available along with some simple APIs, then citizens can do it for themselves, or pay someone to do it. Free unlimited access to all APIs for individual or non-commercial use and some small pay-as-you-go for commercial use…
So what data do we want and need? Anything available under Freedom of Information from crime rates per county to court cases to tax revenue by category. If it exists, we want it.”
Yup. Just been looking for what I’d naively hoped were simple things: an API to help me sort out a GP nearby locator, and an API for OFSTED stuff. Ho hum. Am now fervently hoping the Guardian Free Our Data campaign works. Especially given the conclusion of this (very good) report:
In sum, recognition is slowly emerging in Europe that open access to government information is critical to the information society, the scientific endeavor, and economic growth. However, recent trends towards more “liberal†policies face opposition. This comes from treasuries as well as from entrepreneurial civil servants in charge of “government commercialization†initiatives, who are sometimes tempted to engage in anti-competitive practices. Therefore, these issues require consideration at the highest policy making levels of government.