Government Operations committee  I don't know about that. The $3 trillion figure comes from adding up all of the benefits across the world from being more efficient. The seven sectors that they looked at were things like education, health care, consumer credit, where the benefits were from the markets operating more efficiently and more effectively, and in the case of consumer credit then in a more fair fashion.

Government Operations committee  In my view we are heading towards that type of regime. I think it's quite a long way away, and it will require more than just open data. That's the whole digitization of public services. It requires you to solve the problem of identity, which is a thorny one, for getting identity in the public services context, and using data that shouldn't be made public in a consensual way to then personalize and tailor those services for the individual who's in front of you.

Government Operations committee  I think that you need to look at the legislation alongside the culture of the organization. In the U.K. we've done both. So there has been a big culture shift inside governments towards the presumption that data can be published and that where it can be published it should be, partly to help your colleagues in government when they're looking for data but also as a generally good thing to support innovation and greater accountability in the U.K.

Government Operations committee  Okay, thank you. There are a couple of lessons or things that I want to talk about here. One is examples from my own experience of how not to do it, which is to be absolutely dictatorial to the departments; or indeed to accept the standard once and expect everybody to be able to follow it, even with what you might at the time assume to be simple guidelines.

Government Operations committee  Good morning. I want to start, in the same way as the other witness, by giving a little bit of extra context about me. I was instrumental in the U.K.'s rollout of open data, working in the Cabinet Office to write the initial policy and also doing the first 12 months of delivery and release of data.