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"BT is investing £2.5bn to roll-out superfast broadband to two-thirds of UK consumer and business premises by the end of 2014. Regeneris Consulting was commissioned to assess the potential economic benefits of BT's investment in superfast broadband for businesses and focussed on four case study areas: A rural area in the UK: Norfolk and Suffolk A UK town: Caerphilly A UK city: Sunderland The capital city: London The report and its observations builds on Regeneris' experience in the production of number of studies assessing the economic impact of broadband investments throughout the UK. Their work has informed business planning and bid development, including a number of the current crop of BDUK projects and projects to help secure investment from European funding sources. The 'Key Facts regarding BT's investment in Broadband' and the 'Summary of key observations' from the report are below. "

Well, we made it this far! it has been a rollercoaster ride but we finally have the new site up and running. When I first took on the role of Head of Data.gov.uk I knew that we had a challenging task ahead; making the best government data portal around into something even better.  I think the amazing team at Data.gov.uk has achieved just that. Adopting the mantra of 'meaningful experience' we wanted to achieve several things: Simplify the process of finding data without taking away the more complex aspects expected by the seasoned users Expand the amount of information available around a dataset as to promote better contextualisation Make it easy to 'discover' data be it through search or through perusal of publishers or tags Make the engagement aspects of the site more comprehensive, dynamic and substantial Strengthen the location data presence across the site Bring back the emphasis on new developments and innovation around open data technologies Make it easier and better for data owners to publish more data With this in mind we set out to re-rationalize the experience of the site, as a result you will notice a series of new functionalities both in the catalogue and the engagement section.

The National Audit Office has just published its verdict on the UK government's open data project. Find out what the report said - and get the indicators here:

One of the defining characteristics of digital media is interaction. It enables us to be active, make choices, build connections, express ourselves and exercise a new level of control over our media experiences. But how active is the UK online population really? And how might this change in years to come? With these questions in mind, my team and I conducted a large-scale, long-term investigation into how the UK online population participates using digital media today - from sharing links, to writing blogs and uploading photos. And it revealed a fascinating, and at times, surprising picture.

The British government is doubling down on the notion that open data can be a catalyst for increased government transparency, civic utility and economic prosperity. Yesterday, the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office hosted an event in London, England to highlight the release of a new white paper on "unleashing the potential of open data," linked at the bottom of the post, and the relaunch of a Data.gov.uk, the country's open data platform. The site now has over 9,000 data sets on it, according to the Cabinet Office.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has revealed that it's launching a mentoring scheme for digital startups called BBC Labs. The official launch event is on June 22 at Google's Campus, a co-working space in east London. The six month programme is aimed at emerging digital media companies in the UK, with a view towards helping the selected startups gain traction and scale by working closely with them - the ultimate goal is to help them strike a commercial partnership with BBC Worldwide.

The UK Royal Society is a fellowship of the world's most brilliant scientists. Founded in 1660, its members have included Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. Distinguished thinkers Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Tim Berners-Lee are current members of the society. It is arguably the most prestigious scientific community in the world. And so it is of note how strident it is about the importance of open data for the advancement of science.

Millions of pounds in public funds are being spent building a UK broadband network that will not be fast enough to deal with the internet needs of the future and may have to be replaced, the House of Lords has warned. The government's internet strategy and the way it is awarding £530m of public funds to extend connections to rural communities have been criticised as flawed and liable to widen the digital divide by the Lords communication committee, which on Tuesday published the findings of its six-month inquiry into the state of the nation's broadband infrastructure.

The Government first set out its policy on the use of open source in 2004. This was restated in both 2009 and 2010. The Government ICT Strategy states that "Where appropriate, Government will procure open source solutions."  To support this, Action 3 of the Strategy says that "To create a level playing field for the use of innovative ICT solutions, the Government will publish a toolkit for procurers on best practice for evaluating the use of open source solutions." The following set of documents make up that toolkit: All About Open Source - including FAQs  ICT Advice Note - Procurement of Open Source  Procurement Policy Note on Open Source  OSS Options  CESG Guidance on Open Source - for Government users only Publically accessible summary of the security guidance Total Cost of Ownership  Total cost of ownership of open source software: a report for the UK Cabinet Office supported by OpenForum Europe PPN Open Source The purpose of this toolkit is to ensure that there is a level playing field for open source and proprietary software and that some of the myths associated with open source are dispelled. 

"Here are all the latest facts and figures about communications in the UK today."

The UK Cabinet Office recently released Social Media Guidance for civil servants. The guidance goes far beyond the level and sophistication of material I've seen from many other jurisdictions, offering support and useful advice, not just rules and warnings. It also provides advice to CTOs and CIOs on how to oversome some of the technical barriers to accessing and using the internet and social media that still plague many agencies, stating that, Social media is likely to become as ubiquitous as email with many more, if not all, staff eventually needing to use it in some form as part of their work.

It's about how organisations within a community can use technology as a catalyst or supporting tool to support ideas and create social action or change within that community," Amy Gadd, senior network manager of the community hubs project, told E-Government Bulletin. All the hubs' progress will also be measured over the funded period up to April 2013, to evaluate its impact. "We'll be creating case studies as we go, particularly in terms of how technology has made a change", said Gadd. "We're not expecting massive changes, they may be quite small, but significant to that community. And we'll be pulling some of those stories out, spreading them through the UK Online Centres network, so that others can follow.

A new study suggests that people in the UK could soon be shopping online in large numbers from the television sets in their living rooms.

"Today the UK government published its Digital Government Strategy, a vision for how it will deliver government services online. Why, you may ask, should anyone care? It is a good question. Governments have been talking about how they will deliver services online for over two decades. (Anyone up for some e-government?) The sad truth is, at the national level, few users of online government services believe governments have succeeded - most citizens' experience with government websites are marked with frustration, a sense of loathing, and pretty much the opposite of whatever we imagined e-government would be."

Are you in a local minority or majority? Which part of the city do similar people live in? French data visualisation specialists Dataveyes have created an interactive map of Rennes, showing the city's demographic breakdown from the perspective of an individual person or household. Residents can select their sex and age to find out what proportion of the population share the same characteristics, or highlight an employment status, profession or marital status to explore the spatial distribution of people in the same group. You can also explore the city's composition at household-level, with data grouped according to type of accommodation, tenure and number of rooms. Click one of the city's 37 municipalities to view a breakdown of its population according to one of the socioeconomic indicators

Some of Whitehall's most secret statistics are to be published and will be free to use by businesses and the public, the chancellor will announce on Tuesday in his autumn statement. Personal health records, transport data, house prices and even the weather will be included in what promises to be the most dramatic release of public data since the 2010 election.