Government commits to open data

Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered key government data on hospitals and doctors, schools, criminal courts and transport is to be made available online.

Downing Street has issued a letter to senior cabinet ministers spelling out its commitment to make more information available to the public about services they use to help drive more efficient provision.

Cameron said it was at the heart of the government's agenda, adding:"We recognise that transparency and open data can be a powerful tool to help reform public services, foster innovation and empower citizens."

He said he believed it could be a significant driver of economic activity and claimed: "These commitments represent the most ambitious open data agenda of any government in the world."

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude later told public service professionals and data industry representatives: "Information enables choice, which creates competition, which drives up standards.

"The new commitments represent a quantum leap in government transparency and will radically help to drive better public services.

"Having this data available will help people find the right doctor for their needs or the best teacher for their child, and will help front-line professionals compare their performance and effectiveness and improve it."

The data sets will include:

• Comparable clinical outcomes of GP practices in England, due by December.
• Family doctor prescribing, also by December.
• Clinical audit on teams treating key healthcare conditions from April, 2012.
• Staff satisfaction by hospital and mental health trust, by December.
• School effectiveness teaching high, average and low attaining pupils, from January 2012.
• Access to anonymised data from the National Pupil Database to enable parents to make better comparison of school performance.
• Bringing together school spending, performance and Ofsted judgements in a "parent-friendly" form searchable by post code from January, 2012.
• Government-paid apprenticeships, this month.
• Sentencing by court, including age, gender and ethnicity, by November.
• Performance of probation services and prisons, from October.
• An enhancement of the national crime mapping website to include outcomes.
• Current and future roadworks on strategic routes from October and local roads during 2012.
• All remaining government-owned datasets from Transport Direct, including cycle routes and car parks, from October.
• Real-time data on incidents, speeds and congestion on strategic road, from December.
• Rail service performance and complaints by May 2012.
• Weekly timetable information from National Rail by December.
• Government procurement card spend data from September.

All the new datasets are to be in an open-standard format available to be used freely by third parties.

Cameron's letter with the commitments, which follows publication over the past year of crime maps, government structures and spending, was made available with the launch of a new Number 10 web site.

So far the number of data sets published through data.gov.uk has reached more than 7,000.