Huge returns!
Source: Whitehall & Westminster World newspaper
Distributing public data for free could bring huge returns for industry and the wider public
London: 12 August 2008
The UK published magazine Whitehall & Westminster World 12 August 2008 edition (Interview page 9) carries an interview with Professor Richard Susskind titled – The Information salesman. Richard Susskind until recently was the Chair of the UK Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI). The interview describes how distributing public data for free could bring huge returns for industry and the wider public.
The article states:
“While Richard Susskind welcomes the flurry of activity and interest around the issue, he is keen that the government take the research (Commercial Use of Public Information-2006, Power of Information-2007, Models of Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds-2008) that has already been produced and create a clear policy, possibly under the aegis of a single information minister.
“At some stage there’s got to be a decision made at a very senior level” he says. “How do we make the mode of this asset? That question remains unanswered.”