UK Government Shows Us A Better Way

It's quite nice to hear of an interesting concept that has not been hatched by some 19 year old in Silicon Valley.

This time the idea comes from the UK government or more specifically from the Power Of Information Taskforce (sounds very Orwellian, doesn't it?), whose remit is:

To advise and assist the government on delivering benefit to the public from new developments in digital media and the use of citizen- and state-generated information in the UK, including those identified in the Power of Information Review.

Well, it seems that they are organising a competition and are:

asking for your help in developing better ways to publish the vast swathes of non-personal information that the government collects & creates on your behalf Public data is your data. Tell us what you'd build with it and you could win £20k to develop your idea to the next level.

The Show Us A Better Way website says that the UK government produces vast amount of information on crime, education and health, yet much of the information is buried away on servers.

And the Great British public is now being asked to come up with ideas on how to use this information better. There are already a stack of ideas listed on the site (competition closes at the end of September) and here are a couple of them:

Clean Restaurants

On a basic level Clean Restaurants would offer a google maps mash up highlighting the official hygiene ratings given by local Trading Standards.

Crime map
An online map that shows where crime has taken place.

What's very interesting is that the public are also invited to leave their own comments on these ideas - very government 2.0!

For those who are worried about use of public information, there is some reassurance on the site:

Rest assured, this competition does not include personal information about people.

No, that information is entrusted to civil servants who travel by train and to American firms like Lockheed Martin.

[Hat tip to Gallomanor for pointing me to this article]