I am going to keep this post very brief.  For those who want to delve deeper, there is piece from this week’s Computer Weekly here by Policy Exchange’s Eddie Copeland.

I am not going to set out a strident defence of the local authority position; nor am I going to congratulate Eddie on exposing a growing gap between the rhetoric and reality of the public sector’s ability to release and exploit its data resources. I honestly do know who is right and who is wrong.

What I will say is that we as a city need to discuss honestly how we overcome the cultural, political, governance and commercial issues which keep data flows across city systems to, well honestly speaking, a trickle. The time has come to share thoughts on how city government becomes more deterministic, setting out city needs so that the data market is allowed to develop in a way that keeps the market from fragmenting and generates proper innovation potential in the way the article describes. This is needed much more than a romp around the subjects of common standards, ontologies and interoperability. Their emergence and ability to move us away from fragmented city service approaches is much more likely.

Our third Borough Data Partnership meeting takes place a week today. We’ve some great speakers from national and local government, covering practical and policy issues for data practitioners. Come along, and let’s start a much needed discussion.