Open Data

Overview

Building on the previous government’s work on the 'Making Public Data Public' initiative, the current government’s Coalition Programme contains several aims relating to open data:

• Online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000

• Creation of a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis;

• A requirement for all councils to publish items of spending above £500
  Ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties;

• Along with other initiatives relating to open data, this area of government policy is now known as the Transparency Programme.

Objectives

There are three main objectives behind Open Data:

• Data that public sector will be required to provide;

• Persuasion by government for the public sector to release data;

• The Government’s desire to generate innovation inside the public sector, and externally amongst individual users and the non-public sector.

Challenges

Challenges and risks identified by the ‘data community’ as well as the public sector itself,
include:

• Concerns over data quality, usability and methods of publication;

• Risk of data being misused or poorly used, leading to inaccurate outcomes. This is
  most illuminated by concerns raised over the effectiveness of “armchair auditors” versus practitioners and professionals using appropriate methodologies

Open Data: No definition has been settled upon by the Government however their Public Sector Transparency Board have drafted some Public Data Transparency Principles (below). They cover how public data should be made available in order to meet the government’s Transparency Programme.

Draft Public Data Transparency Principles

• Public data policy and practice will be clearly driven by the public and businesses who want and use the data, including what data is released when and in what form - in addition to the legal Right To Data itself this overriding principle should apply to the implementation of all the other principles.
• Public data will be published in reusable, machine-readable form.
• Public data will be released under the same open licence which enables free reuse, including commercial reuse.
• Public data will be available and easy to find through a single easy to use online access point (data.gov.uk).
• Public data will be published using open standards, and following relevant
  recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium.
• Public data underlying the Government’s own websites will be published in reusable form for others to use.
• Public data will be timely and fine grained - Data will be released as quickly as possible after its collection and in as fine a detail as is possible. Speed may mean that the first release may have inaccuracies; more accurate versions will be released when available.
• Release data quickly, and then re-publish it in linked data form - Rather than delay any release of the data, our recommendation is to release it ‘as is’ as soon as possible, and then work to convert it to a better format.
• Public data will be freely available to use in any lawful way.
• Public bodies should actively encourage the re-use of their public data - in addition to publishing the data itself, public bodies should provide information and support to enable it to be reused easily and effectively.
• Public bodies should maintain and publish inventories of their data holdings - accurate and up-to-date records of data collected and held, including their format, accuracy and availability.

Full list with notes available at: http://data.gov.uk/blog/new-public-sector-transparency-board-andpublic-data-transparency-principles .

Local Government Expenditure over £500

• What data to publish;

• How to publish spending data online in an open format;

• What to consider when publishing the data such as data protection, licensing and other matters;

• How to make better use of the data through ‘linked data’;

Publication of Local Authority Salaries

• The salaries paid to members of the organisation’s senior management, which is likely to be similar to those classified as Chief Executives and Chief Officers: second-tier and above. This will however vary depending on the size of the council;

• The extent of the organisation’s establishment.

• Individual data on all senior employees earning more than £150,000 by job title and name;
• Individual data on all senior employees earnings between £50,000 and £150,000 by job title only;
• Banded data on all other employees earning over £50,000.
  

• supporting and challenging Departments and Non Departmental Public Bodies in their implementation of the Government’s transparency and open data agenda;

• extending the transparency and open data agenda to local government and to the rest of the public services, including public transport;
  

• establishing clear principles for transparency and setting open standards, policies and licences for data release across the public services developing the legal Right to Data (in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice);
  

• driving the publication of further public datasets on the basis of public demand and of economic and social benefit.
  

• Details of the Framework itself;

• The Open Government Licence for Public Sector Information

• Guidance and frequently asked questions