A further acronym has been added to the growing list of government departments and agencies involved in the management of public information. The new Office of Public Sector Information states that it ‘is at the heart of information policy, setting standards, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information’. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) has been incorporated into OPSI, itself a signifier that the new department is a big hitter.

The differences in remit of OPSI and the Department for Constitutional Affairs (which handles the Freedom of Information Act on its web site) are, on first inspection of each department’s site, unclear. I found this ironic considering the respective departments’ aim to be transparent and understandable to the lay person (in this case, myself). To my untutored eye, the Department for Constitutional Affairs is charged with the responsibility of judging what information can be released under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. Meanwhile, OPSI focuses on the implementation of safe processes for the dissemination and trading of general public information.

A third department, the e-Government unit, is charged with ‘delivering citizen-centred online services’. It appears that this particular department is responsible for infrastructure. Three departments performing variations on a similar theme, then. Public information may now be more freely available, but should citizens have to perform circus tricks to actually obtain it?