Open Data Innovation Community - Francis Maude speech | Cabinet Office

“Draft text of a speech delivered by Francis Maude at the Open Data Innovation Community event in Birmingham on 14 March 2012... ‘Birmingham did not hang around in the 20th Century when it came [to] grasping the possibilities of a smart, connected city. Digital Birmingham saw a future where the city’s local businesses, local government, local universities would grasp economic opportunities and meet social challenges by ensuring the city had 21st Century digital infrastructure and digital services. And as we know tying a digital city together is intelligence sharing – data sharing - transparency... This Government believes Open Data will be the essential characteristic of future public policy... It is easier for the public to demand data - easier for governments to provide it. Easier for citizens to hold Governments to account - on a day to day basis not just at election time. It is easier for people to use data to inform their choices in public services and demand better.  It is easier for entrepreneurs and businesses to analyse raw data and both sell on insights gained and create new and innovative products. Data is in fact the new capital of the 21st Century, a highly valuable resource that is creating jobs and building whole new commercial markets... And the UK is leading the world in making data more freely available. Since this Government took office in May 2010 we now have regular publication of central department spending data over £25,000 and local government spending over £500.  Our Open Data commitments cover health, education, transport, crime and justice – as well as central government spending. We’ve already released over 40,000 datasets on data.gov.uk – the largest resource of its kind in the world... And of course here in Birmingham your Civic Dashboard is a field-leading example of how open data can give local people an online, accessible way of understanding how their city is doing and how government is responding to their needs and wishes... So when some ask: what difference can transparency and data sharing make for citizens in their everyday lives? The answer?  It can make a difference both in a huge way; and in a mundane way; and in infinite ways between. It can save lives.  A few years ago Sir Bruce Keogh, Britain’s leading cardiac surgeon persuaded his peer group to publish outcome data, including mortality rates, across the UK.  The results were startling in their massive variances. Bad practices were eliminated.  Good practices spread.  And mortality rates fell over the succeeding years by no less than 22%.  We are committed to continuing to improve our public services, particularly healthcare, through open data... Today the Prime Minister is meeting President Obama in the US, as the UK prepares to take on co-chairmanship of the global Open Government Partnership in April - an initiative designed to promote more transparent, effective and accountable government which has over 50 member-states. The theme of our leadership will be transparency driving prosperity. Which means putting  raw data in the public domain for entrepreneurs and businesses to work with; creating an information marketplace. Today we are publishing a series of case studies - ‘Open for Business’, which set out many examples of data-driven enterprise.  It includes the work of Mudlark on the Birmingham Civic Dashboard and its innovation arm, Mudlabs, which is currently working on a cross-platform toolkit looking at climate change and environmental sensing. It also highlights the Access Advisr’ application, one of the 2011 Ordnance Survey GeoVation Challenge winners - which uses publicly available location and travel data to bring information about accessible transport networks together in one online location. By giving a new generation of innovative data entrepreneurs, companies such as Mudlark, ITP and those hosted by Fazeley  Studios here - an opportunity to exploit large tracts of valuable data for free that Governments would previously have left under-analysed and under-used - we are seeing new, highly innovative business models can emerge...”