Osborne pledges more and more transparency

The Post-Bureaucratic Age — mostly just plain and simple transparency, to you and me — barely got a mention once the Tories alighted on the Big Society, of which it is a component. But the thinking behind it never went away, as George Osborne’s speech to the Google Zeitgeist conference testifies today. It may be unusual to hear an address from the Chancellor in which he doesn’t mention the deficit, not even once. But, in talking about publishing details of government spending and contracts online, this is natural territory for him. The thinking behind much of the transparency agenda is simply to cut down waste and extravagance in the public sector. Not only does it help the public hold politicians to account, but it also helps the Exchequer in the political battle to control spending.

But, crucially, it’s not all about cost. Osborne took time to emphasise how the very act of handing information over to the public might improve the services that they access. “Over the next 12 months we’re going to unlock some of the most valuable datasets still locked away in government servers,” he promised. “So a year from now, websites and services will use this data to help the public find the answers to important questions like: Which is the right GP in for my family? How well are the different departments in my nearest hospital performing? What is the quality of teaching like in my local schools, broken down by subject area? Was the person who broke into a car on my street ever apprehended by police, and if so, what happened next?” And so on.

One thing to look out for, beyond whether that 12-month promise is met, is how many people actually use these new websites. The government’s current data site is really just a Nerds’ Paradise; of little use to anyone who doesn’t care for sifting through spreadsheets, in search of obscure spending figures. But with the release (and friendlier presentation) of data on schools, doctors and the like, Osborne will hope that this transparency agenda reaches an overwhelming tipping point. It would, for him, be a stunningly straightforward example of how better services can be delivered during a time of restraint.