Government data to be made available online

A website that will be a one-stop-shop for reams of public data is set to launch in December.

Data.gov.uk will have catalogues of information that the government has collated from all its separate departments and has been developed by Tim Berners Lee, founder of the web, and Professor Nigel Shadbolt from the University of Southampton.

The site is designed to be similar to the one in America used by Barack Obama's administration.

The US version (pictured) lets users search through raw data on public services and publically obtained information about education, income and wealth, crime and national records.

It also includes widgets that let you manipulate the data into charts, maps or snapshots.

Professor Shadbolt said: "A public body has a duty to publish unless there is a significant reason not to but traditionally only the people seen fit to understand data have been accountants and MPs."

Back in the nineteenth century a doctor plotted a series of typhoid outbreaks and traced the disease's source. The UK site will be able to provide patterns, in a similar way, but at a click of a mouse.

Data.gov.uk will only publish anonymous information. There will be no personal information included.