The Shakespeare Review into public sector data has suggested that data held across the public sector, including the National Health Service ought to be used to drive economic growth.
Further reading
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The report contends that the next phase of the "digital revolution" is, perhaps not surprisingly, data and that Britain's public sector, because of its size and national coherence, could take a global lead.
"Britain enjoys significant advantages: the size and coherence of our public sector... combined with government's strong commitment to a visionary open data policy means that we have the opportunity to be world leaders in the enlightened use of data," suggests the 71-page report.
It adds: "If we play it right we can break free of the shackles of a low-growth economy in which government and the public sector are seen as a resource drag and an obstacle, and they instead become key drivers of a transforming process."
The report continues: "Imagine if we could combine all the data we produce on education and health, tax and spending, work and productivity, and use that to enhance the myriad decisions which define our future; well, we can, right now. And Britain can be first to make it happen for real."
However, the depth of detail of the data and who is contracted to analyse it, will raise serious privacy concerns.
Shakespeare made the following recommendations:
* Defining the principles of ownership: it all belongs to the citizen, not to the government;
* Creating a national data strategy for maximising our opportunity - a plan that is recognisable outside government, actionable, and auditable;
* Accelerating implementation so that delivery is broader and more reliable, and that data is utilized in commerce and public administration;
* Strategic focusing of support for the new infrastructure (including strategic investment in basic data science)
* Ensuring trust in the system: confidentiality must be strengthened by fully deploying the available technology.
However, the assertion that the data "belongs to the citizen" may prove inconsistent with the rest of Shakespeare's plans if citizens do not wish to participate.
Mercifully, though, the report does not call for a "significant increase" in public spending on implementing the strategy as the underlying enabling platform - the internet - already exists.
Consultants Deloitte, which was commissioned to analyse the market, made a number of recommendations about how the private sector could be encouraged to participate and adopt similar policies.
First, the government needs to adopt a "National Data Strategy", said Shakespeare, encompassing public-sector data wholesale.
Second, the strategy ought to recognise that the release of public-sector data should not be slowed down by bureaucratic perfectionism. That will require a twin-track policy of "high quality" core data combined with the release of good quality public data.
Third, the government needs to invest in a programme to improve data-science skills via academic institutions.
"We need more data scientists, and plenty of them employed throughout government, and partnerships with academia and business to make sure the science can be put to real world opportunities," said Shakespeare in a speech at the launch of the report.
He added that the US already invests far more than the UK in open data, "Yet Britain is capable of being first in this field, given our expertise in data science and the fact we have large, coherent datasets," concluded the report.