Transparency and data licensing
Last Updated: 3 April 2024
The transparency agenda set by Government has three primary benefits:
- improved accountability of government
- better public services
- economic growth derived from open data businesses
All data should, in principle, be made available unless there are specific sensitivities
Open government is about us:
- opening up our data stores
- getting high quality data out of government and into the public’s hands
- letting everyone know what we are doing
- actively sharing our data
About Data transparency
The Department for Communities and Local Government published the Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency. The code sets out the minimum data that we should be publishing, the frequency it should be published and how it should be published.
In Europe a major development has been the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Directive. The INSPIRE Directive will establish an infrastructure for environmental spatial information in Europe to support community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.
How we publish open data
We are committed to open data and transparency. We will make non-personal information that we hold freely available to everyone in a format that can be reused in our open data directory. The data we publish can be used by anyone unless specified.
Data licences
If you wish to use this data you do not need to ask for permission to do so, but you will have to agree to the terms of the Open Government License for Public Sector Information (OGL). If the data isn't available under the OGL it will be clearly labelled with the relevant licence.
Some data sets include information which can't be made available under the OGL, this is typically geographical information from Ordnance Survey. This data is published using The Public Sector End User Licence - INSPIRE.