In his Autumn statement, UK Chancellor George Osborne has announced that the government has given commitments to open up public sector data in travel, health care, weather and house price data.
Osborne also revealed that the government plans to open an Open Data Institute at London’s Silicon Roundabout, which will help drive its initiatives for open data.
Under the government’s new open data policy, NHS, transport, weather and house prices data will be freely available to the private sector, which can use the data and offer information based services to the public.
According the Guardian, the government is of the belief that making public sector data more accessible will result in increased investment in digital and media technology and increased investment by entrepreneurs in application development.
Osborne also announced a new scheme for relief on investments in start-up companies. The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), as it has been christened, will be available from 6 April 2012 and would run in tandem with the existing Enterprise Investment Scheme.
The UK government is trying to drive the entrepreneurial sector, which it believes is the key to future growth of economy. As a 2009 report from the UK’s National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts showed, only 6% of companies were responsible for 54% of new jobs.
Data from the Land Registry will be available from March 2012, the Department for Transport’s data would be made public from April 2012 and data from the NHS will be released from September 2012.
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