Repository: Information Exchange Standard (IES)
Description: The home of the UK Government’s Information Exchange Standard, enabling consistent and open data exchange across domains.
The Information Exchange Standard (IES) is a UK Government initiative to support consistent, open, and interoperable data exchange. It provides a shared semantic foundation that enables public sector organisations to collaborate and integrate systems more effectively.
The standard is designed to be modular and extensible, with support for evolving domain-specific extensions led by diverse teams across government.
This repository is the official home of IES and includes documentation, example data, and ontology models to support adoption and use.
While the Information Exchange Standard is not a legal entity, it represents a collaborative effort across multiple UK government bodies, including (but not limited to):
- Department for Business and Trade (DBT) (custodian of this repository)
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
- Ministry of Defence (MOD)
- Metropolitan Police
- Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)
- Home Office (HO)
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
These organisations act as the custodians and decision-makers for the ongoing development of the Standard.
The development of this work is supported by private sector suppliers and technical specialists engaged through formal agreements. Their contributions are formally recognised in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md file.
This repository includes:
- specification/ – The main specification documents for the Information Exchange Standard Common ontology
- docs/assets/ – Assets used in the documentation, including logos, images, and diagrams
- docs/examples/ – Example usage patterns and data snippets demonstrating IES concepts
- docs/user-guides/ – User guides and tutorials for implementing and using the Information Exchange Standard Common Ontology
- docs/Glossary.md – Glossary of terms used in the IES documentation
Further information is available on the IES website
This repository replaces the earlier IES4 repository, originally hosted by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which was archived on 4 March 2025.
Following that archive, the work was migrated here, adapted, and extended to support ongoing collaboration, development, and publication of new domain-specific extensions. This repository is now the authoritative and actively maintained home of the Information Exchange Standard.
This repository contains both source code and documentation, each released under separate terms:
- Code – Licensed under the MIT License
- Documentation – Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL-UK-3.0)
By contributing to this repository, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under these terms.
© Crown copyright (2020–2025)
We welcome:
- Feedback and structured suggestions
- Bug reports and clarifications
- Requests for extensions or additional documentation
Please see:
- CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines
- CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md for expected behaviour and reporting concerns
- MAINTAINERS.md for maintainer contact information