Scotland’s Improvement Service (IS) has launched open access to the Spatial Hub, making it available beyond the public sector to anyone.
It said the hub, which is run by the Spatial Information Service and brings together a wide range of data directly from local authorities and partner organisations, has been made more widely available due to funding from the Scottish Government.
This provides a significant boost to the cause of opening up public sector data for public use.
Ron Wilkinson, spatial information services programme manager at the Improvement Service, said: “This is the first time in the UK that such a significant resource is being made available as open data; open for anyone to access, use and share as they see fit.
“The availability of these Spatial Hub datasets will save organisations time and money, as they will no longer need to source this data from individual local authorities, while also helping to standardise and maintain the quality of the data used across a wide variety of sectors.
“Spatial Hub datasets cover everything from environment and pollution, energy, and health and care services to community and society, planning, and roads and transport plus many more.”
Updates and expansion
The datasets are regularly updated and can be accessed through the online platform set up by the Improvement Service.
Launched in 2016, the Spatial Hub has been steadily expanded to include data on issues such as polling, health and social care, and public utilities.
Ordnance Survey has been a continual partner in its development. The organisation’s strategic development manager, Dominic Cuthbert, said: “We are excited to support the launch of this local government open data initiative that will not only enable access to a single source of geospatial datasets but improve efficiencies for customers and support critical developments across the planning and environmental communities.”
