A recent academic paper ‘Government Data and the Invisible Hand’ supports the growing movement towards opening up more public sector information for public reuse.

Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, Zeller, William P. and Felten, Edward W., Government Data and the Invisible Hand. Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 11, 2008. Yale.

Available at the Social Science Research Network: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1138083

The abstract includes assertions that Government should, “reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens…(and instead) focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that exposes the underlying data.”

This view in being championed within UK Government by the work of the Cabinet Office led Power of Information (POI) taskforce which is opening up more public sector information as part of its implementation of the Power of Information Review. Read more about this on the POI blog.

Watch this space for news on work underway to bring in data about local mental health services from the NHS Choices website into the Choice and medication website we have developed.