Does Berkshire have #opendata?

According to the Openly Local UK Councils Open Data Scorecard, only 3 of Berkshire's six councils have open data - compared to 85 out of 428 across the rest of the country.

So far Bracknell Forest, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and West Berkshire have responded to public demands for greater transparency, while Reading, Slough and Wokingham have not.

As part of the government commitment to create an Open Government License to ensure 'all public sector information is now available under a free, perpetual licence without restrictions beyond attribution' and thereby open up almost all non-personal data for free re-use, local councils are encouraged to put all information collected during official business in the public digital realm online.

The campaign has been supported by The Guardian newspaper, which operates the Free Our Data blog.

The power of information

Campaigners argued that open access to public data encourages greater participation and enables greater scrutiny of government spending, contracts and plans, while providing an insight into who is responsible for what so that higher levels of accountability are provided. Six areas of opportunity have been identified.

For policy geeks interested in discovering ways of using data more creatively to drive service improvements, open data provides the necessary means to 'catalyze innovation' in a modern modular system and improve sustainability - which means connecting different information sources from within large public bureacracies to help prevent problems and delays costing the public purse as much as £18bn-a-year from arising in the first place.

Among other things, all major expenses over £500 should be available to be viewed online by anyone wishing to do so, while real-time transport information could be used to develop mobile applications.

Read more about it in the Cabinet Office's Power of Information Taskforce Report (Feb 2009).

The official data.gov.uk website provides a national hub, while local blogger Countculture has been at the forefront of the open data campaign.


Oranjepan asks:
Why have only 3 out of 6 councils in Berkshire given us open data so far? If equal opportunity is good for half, why isn't it good for all?

Recommended Reading List #57

While the controversial aspects of poppy-wearing have caused consternation in the footballing world, Berkshire's own Internet Psychologist, Graham Jones, provides the best tribute to rememberance of the cause for which so many people have fought and died throughout the years.

He argues we should be proud even of all the 'rubbish and nastiness' we find online, because this is a perfect demonstration of the freedoms which we possess thanks only to the millions who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

Without condoning any of the 'disgusting, sickening and criminal behaviour' that we can become all too familiar with, he says, this is "a testament to the free society in which we live" because our ability to campaign against and reduce the nastiness we find in life simply would not exist without defending the right of those who wish to engage in it.

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Fostering International Understanding with Reading International Festival

Cross-cultural dialogue has been to the fore during this year's Reading International Festival - and there's been remarkable evidence that to be successful learning must be a two-way exercise!

Organiser Dave Richards explained the festival is designed to present "an amazing programme of events that will help you explore the world outside your comfort zone."

Iranian news agency Ahlul Bayt (ABNA) even picks up on one event - an exhibition at RISC showing the influence of Islam through British history, reporting links that go back to the invitation and reception of ambassadors from the Caliph of Baghdad by the Mercian King Offa in AD754 - in the century before Reading was founded.

Indeed, such events will be welcomed in all sections of the community following the less flattering incident earlier this summer when a lairy group disrupted an Islamic lecture held at the Rivermead centre - an event which saw all sides criticised after the drunken protesters claimed to represent the proto-racist English Defence League and the speaker Sheikh Khalid Yasin was denounced as a bigot and 'hate-preacher' promoted by the Berkshire Islamic Information Group without adequate reference to council guidelines.

Sadly however, confusion reigns among colonial counterparts in New Zealand, who appear happy to continue to labour under the delusion that London Street is in London!