About us

The Centre for Public Data is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organisation working for stronger public data - that is, data collected, published or regulated by the government. 

We work with policymakers to identify data gaps, parliamentarians to scrutinise legislation, and organisations to help them get the data they need.

We aim to ensure that new policy and legislation contains data provisions that produce the high-quality data that modern Britain needs.

Learn more about our mission and goals below, or see who we are, work with us, or get in touch.

Why we exist

Government, civil society and industry in Britain is crucially dependent on data, especially public data - datasets that are published or regulated by government.

As a nation, the UK has played a pioneering role in the collection and use of public data. But more recently, our institutions have struggled to keep up with change. A series of policy failures share a common root: a state whose data processes and systems are not fit for purpose.

Yet at present, white papers and Bills rarely mention data: data is an afterthought.

Our theory of change

All data collected or published by public institutions in the UK - from GDP statistics to MPs’ expenses data - is produced because a decision has been taken to do so.

This decision may be made by Ministers, Parliament, regulators, local authorities, service designers, or other public servants.

We believe that these decisions are susceptible to pressure - often more susceptible than more entrenched policy areas.

We hope that, by working with partners and experts to help shape new policy and legislation, we can routinely nudge different parts of the state into producing more useful data in particular areas.

The opportunity

We think appropriate use of data can be a straightforward way to support:

  1. Successful policy implementation: Helping policymakers achieve their aims, while reducing the risk of costly failure

  2. Innovation: Making more data available for reuse and innovation by others

  3. Scrutiny and transparency: Deterring fraud, and helping MPs and everyone else see if the policy is working.

What we don’t work on

We tend to focus on non-personal data and statistics. We don’t work specifically on data governance, privacy or ethics. However, if you’re interested in these areas, we’re happy to recommend organisations that we trust.

Reusing our work

All our published writing can be reused under the CC-BY licence. This means you’re free to reuse it however you like (including for commercial purposes), but you must attribute it appropriately: please credit the Centre for Public Data as the author, provide the original title of our work, and link to the original URL.

We share most of the code we write on our GitHub repo.

Get in touch

If you’re interested in our mission, or would like to talk about a particular data area, we’d love to hear from you.

Please get in touch with contact@centreforpublicdata.org.