Francis Maude, Minister of the United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office, recently shared his vision for Open Government. Maude writes, “The movement for transparency and openness in government took decisive steps forward last week. As lead co-chair of the Open Government Partnership, the UK hosted the first ministerial level meeting in Britain of this growing international initiative. But this meeting wasn’t just symbolically significant. We put in place key measures that will help move the OGP from fine words to accountable actions.”

Maude continues, “At the same time, the Open Data Institute, based in London’s Tech City, and the first organisation of its kind anywhere in the world, officially opened for business. In practice, the ODI has been active for a couple months, and is already nurturing new data-driven businesses. I expect other countries will follow our example and create their own ODIs. Open data is another field where Britain is leading the world in the global race. The work of the ODI, demonstrating the commercial and social value of open data and encouraging the public sector to release more of it, supports our vision for the OGP in the next year. It also supports the theme of our chairmanship, which is that transparency drives prosperity.”

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