Adam Afriyie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to incentivise departmental officials to bring old Government data sets online in accessible formats.

Mr Francis Maude

The UK has been recognised as the international leader in data transparency. During our Presidency of the G8 in 2013 we led Members to commit to publishing data openly by default as a matter of principle through the Open Data Charter.

Departments are engaging the public and special interest groups about the most important data held by Government (whether old or new); publishing open data strategies and reporting to Parliament on progress on a quarterly basis.

Those data sets that are judged to have the most significant economic and social impact we refer to as the National Information Infrastructure, and are our priority for making available and accessible.