The UK Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) announced that accounts published at Companies House, the UK registrar of companies, are to be made public free of charge as of the second quarter of 2015.
Accessing records of businesses held at Companies House has always required the user to pay a nominal fee of up to £1. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) says that last year (2013/2014) customers spent £8.7m to see these records.
BIS says that the move has been made as a “step forward in improving corporate transparency”. It’s all part of the government’s larger scheme – the Public Data Group summer statement – which also sees changes to data released by the Land Registry, Met Office, and Ordnance Survey. The government says that the value of this transparency to the UK economy has been put in the region of £900m a year.
“The best way to maximise the value to the UK economy of the information which Companies House holds, is for it to be available as open data,” says business secretary Vince Cable, who says that the move “is making the UK a more transparent, efficient and effective place to do business”.
Source: Cityam.com
Editorial Comment: BIIA Member Duedil has made it a business to provide data from Companies House for free since its inception in 2011. Companies House is now following Duedil’s example.
