This post is from Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation.
Earlier this month, the UK Government published the ‘Open Data Consultation Paper’. Its aim is to establish a “culture of openness and transparency in public services” and the Government is turning to the general public for their preferences on how this should be achieved.
This is an incredibly important opportunity to influence government policy on open data. So if you care about open data – make sure to make your voice heard!
From the Cabinet Office’s Website
“We want to hear from everyone – citizens, businesses, public services themselves,
and other interest groups – on how we can best embed a culture of openness and
transparency in our public services.”
Francis Maude, quoted from the paper
Our proposed approach is, fundamentally, about creating both „pull‟ (a right to data) and
„push‟ (a presumption of publication). With these forces, we will begin to embed openness
and transparency in how we run government. This consultation seeks your views on these
ideas.
### Participants from the general public are invited to voice their opinions on the following topics:
- how we might enhance a ‘right to data’, establishing stronger rights for individuals, businesses and other actors to obtain data from public service providers
- how to set transparency standards that enforce this right to data
- how public service providers might be held to account for delivering open data
- how we might ensure collection and publication of the most useful data
- how we might make the internal workings of government and the public sector more open
- how far there is a role for government to stimulate enterprise and market making in the use of open data.
More details on how to respond can be found below:
Send a written response to:
Open Data Consultation,
Transparency Team,
Efficiency and Reform Group,
Cabinet Office,
1 Horse Guards Road,
London SW1A 2HQ
Closing date for submissions is 27th October 2011
See also
Lucy is a free range "tech-translator", blogging about her work at http://techtohuman.com/.
Formerly, Lucy worked for Open Knowledge leading School of Data, co-editing the Data Journalism Handbook and coordinating the OpenSpending community.
