iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Zoom call organised by Open Data Manchester @opendatamcr.bsky.social (with DCMS?) on 3 September: The marginal cost restriction on public sector data re-use – responding to the call for evidence www.tickettailor.com/events/opend... Context www.gov.uk/government/c... #FOI #opendata #datapolicy

Open by default has been the settled position for public sector data in this country for well over a decade. The Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 limit what most public bodies can charge for re-using their data to the marginal cost of providing it — which, for anything digital, is effectively nothing. That restriction is one of the reasons so much public data is simply there, freely available under the Open Government Licence, ready to be combined with anything else.

The UK Government is now asking whether that should change. Its call for evidence explores whether public bodies should be able to charge above marginal cost for a wider range of data assets, to reinvest the revenue in data infrastructure, data quality and public services. The argument is that many public bodies lack the funding and the incentive to make good data available, and that charging could fix both. The counter-argument, familiar to anyone who has been around open data long enough, is that charging narrows the field of who can use data to those who can afford it, breaks the interoperability that comes from a single licence, and shifts value away from the wider public benefit that free re-use generates.

1:45 PM · Aug 5, 2026

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