The new Government data site, www.data.gov.uk, has opened for business.

The aim is to provide a site where raw data can be made available and used to create new and useful applications. It is also likely to be used as a portal to statistical information already available elsewhere but sometimes difficult to access.
 
The aim is to make data easy to find, easy to licence, and easy to re-use. It already contains more than 2,500 sets of data from across government about all aspects of our lives, ranging from information about education and traffic, to tax and crime.
 
All of the data is non-personal and has been released in a format that can be reused by any individual or business to create innovative new software tools, such as applications that provide information on house prices, local schools, amenities and services, or access to local hospitals.
 
The site was developed in just six months by Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, who both hold chairs at the  School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. "The vision is that citizens, consumers and government can create, re-use and distribute public information in ways that add value, support transparency, facilitate new services and increase efficiency” Professor Shadbolt said. “We believe we can achieve this with the emergence of a new generation of Web techniques and standards."
 
Two of the apps on the site illustrate what he means. The house-price site mouseprice.com links Land Registry, Google and estate agent data to create a vastly-improved site for those buying or selling property, while the public spending site Where does my money go   provides access to Treasury public spending data in a simple and brilliant way.