Personal Democracy Forum – UK Shows the Way Toward Public Data 2.0

UK Shows the Way Toward Public Data 2.0
By Micah L. Sifry, 07/02/2008 - 8:57am

Our cousins across the pond continue to show that "government 2.0" isn't just something that we have to do "to" government, but it's something government can do "with" us. The Power of Information Task Force has just launched a contest called "Show Us a Better Way" that is calling for "ideas for new products that could improve the way public information is communicated." They've put up 20,000 pounds for the winning idea, which is something like a gazillion dollars (these days). This is really kewl.

To make the contest really productive, the taskforce has brought together a wealth of government data-sets and useful APIs, including several previously unavailable treasure-troves, including neighborhood statistics (covering such things as access to services, community wellbeing/social environment, crime and safety, economic deprivation, education, skills and training), health care information, a list of all UK schools and the official notices of the London Gazette.

The kinds of things the organizers are looking for are detailed here. They include obvious mashups like crime mapping, and services like mySociety's "FixMyStreet." But then there's "RateMyPrison" (that's for visitors, not inmates, I think), the "Army Rumour Service," and a host of other fantastic civic software projects collected on a wiki that is worth its weight in gold.

I'm not surprised to see Tom Loosemore's name showing up helping manage the site's blog--he's long been a leader in this space from his days around mySociety to his work at the BBC. Kudos to all!

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show us a better way competition in the UK

Hi Micah - good to be in touch again. Thanks for your kind words about our competition. A few points:

We welcome entries from across the pond. Subject to the proviso that 'All ideas must affect and be implemented in the UK'. So let's get the special relationship going and see some input from the land of the free.

I thought the wiki would come in handy glad you find it useful. Your list of reallyuseful sites at Sunlight made me do it. If you want to add a USA page to the wiki list drop me a mail and i shall send you a key.

That i am able to write this post is a product of some guidelines we published for civil service use of online media. See http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/iam/codes/social_media/participation.asp
In the UK there has been a long and honourable tradition of civil servants not making public statements. This made commenting in online media tricky, so the guidance is a step forward.

Much to my amusement Tom Loosemore is burning with moral outrage at being given credit - he has practically ordered me to point out that had some help from me and particularly Richard Stirling here in the Cabinet Office. We are now recruiting 'digital natives' into the civil service which makes doing this sort of thing a whole lot easier.

cheers

w

By william perrin at Wed, 07/02/2008 - 13:14 | email this page

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