Open data in the United Kingdom

[8] Version 2.0 of the licence was released in June 2013 and it was accompanied by a new logo which "at a glance, shows that information can be used and re-used under open licensing".

Its main role is to produce forecast models by gathering all the information from weather satellites in space and observations on earth.

[14] The report stressed the importance of widely available geographic information to the UK and recommended a loosening of government policies on distribution and cost recovery.

However, finding suitable originals remains an issue as Ordnance Survey does not provide historical mapping on 'free' terms, instead marketing commercially 'enhanced' reproductions in partnership with Landmark Information Group.

[20] The UK Hydrographic Office has data on tidal patterns and the position of astronomical bodies used in navigation, as well as being the primary holder of data for nautical charts, not just in the UK but also in many foreign locations, covering features such as bathymetry (depth), wrecks, underwater cables and pipelines, navigation buoys and lighthouses, and coastal features of interest to the mariner.

The UK Government itself has recently started addressing this problem by making well-formatted, cleaned datasets available through its data registers service.

[23] On the 7 April 2006 the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) received a complaint from the data management company Intelligent Addressing.

[24] Many, although not all, complaints were upheld by the OPSI, one of the conclusions being that Ordnance Survey "is offering licence terms which unnecessarily restrict competition".

And said that "The question lies at the heart of our campaign, which argues that government's role should be to collect and administer high-quality raw data, but make it freely available to everyone to create innovative services".

[26] The resulting report led Cabinet Minister Tom Watson, MP to create a 'Power of Information Task Force.

[30] In April 2008 Tom Watson MP, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office said that pledged to turn upside down the British public's "recipient relationship" with official information.

They also suggested that there should be a clear and consistent copyright and licensing rules applied making it easy to work with data from multiple sources in the public sector.

[34] In August 2009 Tom Watson MP mused on his website under the title "Wacky terms and conditions" about why the DirectGov version of the transport direct portal included this condition: "you may retrieve and display Content from the Website on an electronic visual display device, print individual pages on paper (but not photocopy them)".

[35] In September 2009 Sir Tim Berners Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt who had been appointed by Gordon Brown to advise the Government on how to make data more accessible to the public were invited to Number 10 Downing Street to present their early findings to the cabinet.

[37] He also proposed an Early Day Motion that read "That this House calls on the Government to ensure that transport timetables for rail and bus operators are made freely available for re-use, using an open standards format, thus enabling voluntary and commercial organisations to publish the data on their own digital platforms".

[38] In November 2009 the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced that "mid-scale" data from Ordnance Survey would be made available for free reuse, including commercial applications,[39][40] from April 2010.

A DfT spokeswoman was reported to say: "We will seek to embrace new technology to enable partners to provide exciting, user-focused services such as recently seen with satellite navigation and iPhone applications,"[41] In January 2010 a new government web-service, data.gov.uk was unveiled which would "offer reams of public sector data, ranging from traffic statistics to crime figures, for private or commercial use".

In his speech he observed that at present public transport timetables and real-time running information was owned by the operating companies but that the government would work to free it up.

Also the cost to a Local Authority for adding their area to the planner and for notes of any meetings of project boards and working parties.

bill, to obtain the future economic benefit of sharing the highly detailed mapping produced by the UK's national agency.