Databases opened to the public
Author: Local Government Chronicle |
The Greater London Authority has committed itself to publishing all centrally held data in its raw format as part of a drive to change the nature of the interaction between citizens and the state.
The project, which has attracted interest from Conservative policy officers, aims to encourage citizens to use the data in its raw format so they can make judgments on performance or generate user applications.
The Data Store has been launched with more than 250 different data sets published in a raw form as Google Documents. This allows the information to be stripped out by anyone who wants to use it.
Officials behind the creation of the ‘London Data Store’, due to be launched at a conference on using technology to transform public sector IT, are keen that London boroughs and other agencies operating in the capital add their data.
Data sets to be made available from the outset include a wide range of information, from health statistics, census data and population predictions through to the numbers of sexually transmitted infections diagnosed, average football stadium attendances and gifts and hospitality registers.
The London initiative follows San Francisco’s lead, which launched DataSF.org last summer with more than 100 data sets from the city’s police, transport authority and public works.