9 The Government estimates that public data currently contributes £16 billion annually to the UK economy. While this is the highest of the few estimates available of the scale of the public data market, all suggest that public data holds economic value. The Autumn Statement 2011 announced new transparency commitments designed to extract additional economic growth from public data, including open data releases, arrangements for licensing specific large data sets and commitments to consult. Commitments include releases of data not previously available, and opening access to data previously traded. The Autumn Statement 2011 also made a commitment to establish the Open Data Institute which aims to help businesses exploit opportunities created by public data release.
10 The Government's ability to maximise economic growth from traded data is constrained by current charging and licensing arrangements, and limited understanding of potential benefits. Recent academic research indicates that making all public information that is currently traded available without charge could potentially add economic value in the region of £1.6 billion to £6.0 billion a year. The Government has identified certain trading funds, such as the Met Office and Ordnance Survey, as having data that could stimulate additional economic growth if it was released as open data. The business case for the releases of free data announced in the Autumn Statement 2011 estimates net benefits of £49 million over 20 years - a small proportion of the value estimated to be available across the public sector. Estimates of additional value are based on highly uncertain assumptions about usage, demand and impacts on the wider economy.