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2 posts

Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The problem with making public data pay for itself www.mysociety.org/2026/08/27/t... post by @juliacushion.bsky.social of @mysociety.org UK Government call for evidence www.gov.uk/government/c... #opendata #FOI #datapolicy #treasurybrain

In our fragmented public data report we recognise that public bodies can already spend considerable time publishing data without seeing much evidence of what happens to it afterwards. Where that data is difficult to find or combine, its potential value isn't realised and the people doing the work have less reason to see publication as worthwhile.

Charging offers one answer to this, in that income is easy to demonstrate, but it decreases the overall value and impact of the data. We'd rather see the government get better at making the wider impact of open data visible: who uses it, what they build with it, where it is reused elsewhere in government, and what difference that makes. Better impact tracking would help teams make the case for investing in open data without needing to turn it into a source of income.

There's also a longer-term problem with using charging to fund new data services. If a team is encouraged to generate income from its data and does so successfully, that income starts supporting the service. At that point, making the data open means finding the money somewhere else. The Postcode Address File is a longstanding example of how difficult this can be to unwind. Once licensing income becomes part of how a service is funded, opening the data and replacing that income become the same problem.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Charging for public sector data is likely to cost us more than it raises peterkwells.com/2026/08/21/c... by @peterkwells.com UK Government call for evidence www.gov.uk/government/c... #opendata #FOI #datapolicy #treasurybrain

To be clear, the proposed changes would not affect data the government cannot already publish – no, this would not make it possible to sell personal data… – instead it's about charging for things like bus timetables or maps of forests and footpaths. Information the government currently makes available for free.

Adding charges will reduce use of public service data, with knock-on effects that make all of our lives a little bit harder. Public sector data is infrastructure. Other services, businesses and decisions are built on top of it. Reducing use of that infrastructure means that we will find it a bit harder to catch the right bus, organisations will find it a bit harder to make decisions that improve the environment, and many other examples.

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