Open-Data Push Nets £8m From UK Government

Public bodies in the UK will get extra funding to help them release public data for commercial reuse, as the government continues its push on open data.

The UK government is to spend another £8m helping public organisations release data for commercial reuse. The funding, announced on Wednesday, runs until 2015 and includes a new £7.5m Data Strategy Board Breakthrough Fund. Government departments and local authorities can apply to the fund for help in releasing data, where they have technical barriers to disclosing that data.

A further £850,000 will be spent on an Open Data Immersion Programme, which will run events and competitions for SMEs looking to reuse data for new products and services. Competition entrants can to win up to £25,000 to put towards development of their products...