ODI Fridays: Why people aren't taking full advantage of government data

The government collects and publishes a lot of data as official statistics, but currently citizens, businesses and government itself are not taking full advantage of that. Darren and Bill from Swirrl will report on the Connected Open Government Statistics (COGS) project, seeking to make ambitious changes in the way that statistics are disseminated and used. The established approach to stats releases, of PDF commentary and accompanying spreadsheet tables is part of the picture, but not enough in this age of data, the web and automation. That means big changes to technology choices and more importantly to culture, data governance and mindset. About the speakers Bill Roberts is CEO of Swirrl, a company specialising in software for government organisations to publish their data in standards-based machine-readable ways. As well as providing the software platform for statistics.gov.scot, Swirrl works with the Office for National Statistics, Defra, MHCLG, the Scottish Government and others on ensuring open government data can have the maximum positive impact. Swirrl is a member of the W3C. Darren Barnes has worked in ONS for nearly 30 years and much of this time has been spent in transformational roles. Over the last 12 months his focus has been on what the Government Statistical Service landscape looks like and how we can improve the situation for both statistical producers and users alike.