Open data in the UK: a job half done - ComputerworldUK.com

"Many UK government bodies are still ‘a long way’ from routinely publishing their data, open data expert Sir Nigel Shadbolt has warned. Since 2010 the government has officially promoted the publication of open data: on schools’ performance, local crime statistics and civil servants’ salaries, to name but a few. The stated aim was to improve transparency, but also to boost economic growth thanks to new startups expected to be created on the back of the newly-released data ... In June 2009 Shadbolt and World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee were appointed as advisors to the UK government.They led the development of data.gov.uk, a single website for UK public data launched in 2010. The push for public bodies to publish their data continued under the coalition government, with support from Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.  In 2012 Shadbolt and Berners-Lee set up the Open Data Institute (ODI), which helps to incubate startups based on open data.  The institute has trained 1,500 people in open data, has 300 members, over 25 startups who have gone or are going through its incubator scheme and has influenced policy, for example nudging the government to appoint a chief data officer earlier this year, according to Shadbolt ... There are 20,000 datasets on data.gov.uk, Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock MP said in a recent speech – an impressive sounding figure.  All Whitehall departments now regularly publish data online in some form or another.  However the information can be 'incomplete and difficult to analyse', limited in accuracy as some datasets are not released or are heavily redacted; and constrained as transactions under £25,000 are rarely published, a 2014 Institute for Government report found.  When and how the data gets published – crucial for startups relying on dependable data- can also be sporadic. Just 19 percent of the data published by departments on data.gov.uk is classed as ‘up to date’ ..."