Access to government information

Tom Watson, cabinet office minister and actual blogger, has paddled downstream from his Whitehall digs under cover of darkness (most likely wearing a balaclava) and come away with approximately half a Loosemore. The fraction of Ofcom’s Public Service Web supremo Tom Loosemore he came away with has been busy pushing the laudable idea of open access to government data. This week he launched a competition whose goal is to encourage you and me to make beneficial use of that data. The whole thing is so simple and so persuasive that you’re just going to have to enter. Government data is one vitally important plank of the common platform I’ve been going on about lately. Tomorrow I’m going down to ULU for the geek village fete they call Open Tech at which the cabinet office team will be making a presentation. See you there…