Scope and Objectives

5.1 Greater transparency of government potentially offers a transformative effect on UK public services, civil society and the economy.  From enabling more effective accountability to driving social and economic growth, significant benefits could be realised through three main types of Open Data:

1. Large, non-personal datasets collected routinely by public services e.g. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) on NHS admissions and outpatient appointments in England;
2. Right of individuals to access and control their own service user records e.g. a school or personal health record[1]; and
3. User feedback on services e.g. comments and suggestions from users of health, personal or social care services such as iwantgreatcare.org or bestcarehome.co.uk.

5.2 These three main types of Open Data could operate within a dynamic market for information, made up of many different – but often overlapping – business models.  However, the second category of data described above raises different issues, and is not considered further in depth further in this paper.

5.3 As the Glossary notes, we define Open Data to mean public datasets which are available free of charge for re-use under the Open Government Licence, covering all data relating to the provision of public services.  This will include datasets on access to services, user satisfaction, spending, performance and equality.     

5.4 In devolved areas of policy, it is for the devolved administrations to determine their own public service reforms and we will seek to work in partnership to share best practice.

Footnotes

[1] As stated in the section on Privacy, personal data will not be shared with third parties and full consideration will be given to any release of data that could potentially impact on privacy.