No statutory duty or function for maintaining canonical government reference data

GDS's Registers programme, 51 canonical API-accessible datasets covering countries, local authorities and schools, was retired in March 2021 with no successor function. The consequences are now official: data.gov.uk's own team admits over 25 per cent of links lead to error pages, datasets sit unupdated for years, and listed publishers include organisations that no longer exist, after what it calls underinvestment since 2017. The March 2026 data.gov.uk reset, with curation, a data manual and a public roadmap, treats symptoms. No department is under any duty to maintain reference data that others build on, and the National Data Library's published plans do not yet include ownership obligations.

Every service, journalist and AI system built on rotting reference data inherits its errors. Government is spending over £100m on a National Data Library whose raw inputs decay by default, because maintenance is nobody's job.

A registers function inside the National Data Library: named accountable data owners per canonical dataset, update service levels and public quality dashboards, backed by a Cabinet Office functional standard or a statutory duty to maintain designated reference datasets.

// State-led: Instrument: Cabinet Office functional standard or statutory duty within the National Data Library.

The £100m National Data Library reset creates the moment to attach maintenance duties, and keeping canonical datasets current is currently nobody's statutory job.