Improved access to government data

[sawyl]

Her Majesty's government's Putting the Fronline First: smarter government, announced today by Gordon Brown, contains some interesting announcements about how public access to government data might be improved. From the section on opening up data and promoting transparency, these include:

• releasing some health data
• possibly making OS mapping and postcode data available for reuse
• increasing access to public transport data
• releasing underlying data for weather forecasts
• releasing more information on and by Met Office scientists free of charge
• publishing fiscal stimulus data
• possibly making more financial data available to the public

All of which goodness has, unsurprisingly, been scheduled to happen by April 2010. It looks like Christmas might have come early for the Guardian's Free Our Data campaign...