Web guru unveils new age in public access to service data

摘要

The team behind Whitehall's huge public data project, including 'web' inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, want to make information on local government similarly accessible to residents.Sir Tim and his Cabinet Office team unveiled their latest venture last week - a website offering the public access to a vast range of official Whitehall data linked to public services, including schools ratings maps, health statistics, local crime rates and information on planning applications.The site - data.gov.uk - is for public or commercial use, and has been partially designed so that individuals or firms can turn more than 2,500 data sets on particular issues into easy-to-use information services for the public.Developers have already built a site aimed at parents, which maps the location of schools which receive high Ofsted ratings. Other projects already include a site that allows people to report and map potholes and road hazards following the recent cold snap across Britain.