UK plans to become world leader in open data

George Osborne states lofty ambitions at Google's Zeitgeist event

Chancellor George Osborne has stated his ambition to make the UK a world leader in open data.

Osborne was speaking at Google's Zeitgeist event 2011 in Hertfordshire today.

"Our ambition is to become the world leader in open data, and accelerate the accountability revolution that the internet age has made possible," he said.

He added that data currently locked away in government servers will be available in a year's time, enabling the public to make choices about the public services it consumes.

"A year from now web sites and services will use this data to help the public find answers to questions like: 'Which is the right GP for my family?', 'What's the quality of teaching like in my local school?'."

He explained that further public reforms would be happening online by default.

"In all our reforms we assume that public service delivery can be shifted online, and officials and ministers have to justify why any aspect is to be delivered through traditional offline channels."

He gave the example of business tax returns moving online.

"The Treasury and Inland Revenue has already moved to online-only corporation tax returns. We'll be doing the same for all the main business taxes."

Osborne's comments follow the release of Alpha.gov.uk. This is a prototype web site that could replace the directgov web site but will be trialled for several months to determine its popularity with the public before it goes live.

The site aims to bring all government information and transactions into one place, which the government anticipates will save it over half of the £130m it spends on internet publishing each year.