Achieving Change through Open Data

Andrew Stott UK Transparency Boardformerly Director, data.gov.uk

Zagreb, Croatia28 Sep 2012

@dirdigengandrew.stott@dirdigeng.com

Open Data in the UK: The Policy Drivers

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Policy Drivers for Open Data

Economic growth and social value

Improve public services

Transparent Government

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Labour Coalition

UK Policy Drivers

New economic and social value

June 07 Mar 11

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Feb 09

Economic Value of Open Data

Open Gov Data in EU would increase business activity by up to €40 Bn with total annual benefits of €140 Bn

Spanish study found ~€600m of business from open data with >5000 jobs

Australian study found ROI of ~500% from open dataDeloitte study for EU found open data was reused 10-

100 times more than charged-for dataReleasing addressing data as Open Data in Denmark

gave $21m/yr benefits and 2200% ROIOpen Weather Data in US has created 400 companies

employing 4000 people

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Labour Coalition

UK Policy Drivers

New economic and social value

Jul 11

Improve public services

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Mar 09

Open Data improving public services

Publishing the UK’s 240 cardiac surgeons’ individual clinical outcomes reduced deaths by 1000 a year

1000s of apps delivering public transport information in the United States – 68 in New York alone

UK released data on location of 300,000 bus-stops; OpenStreetMap corrected 18,000 of them, improving official data accuracy.

Sharing Open Data within public agencies in Manchester (city of 2.6m people) saves US$14m/yr

Open Data on public agency purchasing has allowed a “whole of government” view to get best prices and performance from key suppliers

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Labour Coalition

Jun 09

UK Policy Drivers

New economic and social value

May 10

Improve public services

Transparent & Accountable Government

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Open Data in Transparency

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UK Government Transparency Data

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For every Ministry:-ExpenditureSenior staff salariesExpensesOfficial credit cardsContractsTendersOrganisation chartsLocal service & performance dataMeetings

Financial Transparency: Macro Level

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Holding government accountable

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Financial Transparency: Transaction level

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Pressure to justify and restrain costs

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Pressure to justify and restrain costs

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Financial transparency: Contract Level

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Links to the documents

Contracts: A great example from Slovakia

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Original text of contract from Gov website

“Rate this contract”

Key details and links

Fair-Play Alliance

Transparency of Hospital Performance

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12+ WeeksMRSA-free

Good C-DiffrecordLow

Mortality

2 recentMRSA

Bloodclots

Patientratings

Crime Data

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Crime: Data Engagement

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Local team

Telephone, website, Facebook and Youtube ….

Local police

Twitter feed

How YOU can get involved

It’s very local

Accessible data on crime

Attract Inform Engage Action

Open Data for Accountability

Open Data exposed CAN$3.2bn misuse of charitable status in tax code in Canada

Publishing UK Senior Civil Servants’ expenses reduced claims by ~40-50%

Open Data exposed racial discrimination in water supply in Zanesville, United States – victims won $10.9m compensation

UK civil service pay data exposed people paid twice as much as the Head of the Civil Service and three times as much as the Prime Minister

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A dataset can serve multiple objectives

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Lessons learned

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Top-level political support essential

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“Public information does not belong to Government, it belongs to the public.”

“Greater transparency will enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account”

Strong civil society “demand-side” essential

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Passionate team important too!

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Deliver incrementally

Release interesting & useful data

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Ensure clear, common, licensing

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Don’t accept “no” — work out “how”

It’s held separately by n different organisations, and we can’t join it up It will make people angry and scared without helping them It is technically impossible We do not own the data The data is just too large to be published and used Our website cannot hold files this large We know the data is wrong We know the data is wrong, and people will tell us where it is wrong We know the data is wrong, and we will waste valuable resources

inputting the corrections people send us People will draw superficial conclusions from the data without

understanding the wider picture People will construct league tables from it It will generate more Freedom of Information requests It will cost too much to put it into a standard format It will distort the market Our IT suppliers will charge us a fortune to do an ad hoc extract

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Manage expectations, prepare for mistakes

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“We’re making a small start next week. But eventually, it’s going to make a big difference.”

“The information we’re publishing next week won’t be perfect, and I’m sure there’ll be some mistakes. But I want to get on with it.”UK Prime Minister 29 May 2010

Photos: @memespring, @MadLabUK, @paul_clarke

Continuously engage with developers

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.. and highlight applications, not data

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Government is a data user too

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… and the biggest lesson of all

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Overcome obstacles practically by doing,

not debating

Overcome obstacles practically by doing,

not debating

Open Data, Privacyand

Freedom of Information

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Open Data v. Privacy

Open Data and Freedom of Information

Why did the UK FOI Act not give Open Data?FOI practice has focussed on Requests for Information, and ignored Proactive PublicationExemptions give many grounds to withholdLong-winded process to challenge refusalsNo “right to reuse” in FOI responses (fixing)No requirement for re-usable formats (fixing)Cost thresholds – inefficient Ministries are less transparentUncertainty and time delays are barriers to innovation

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Birmingham Parking Tickets: Data obtained by FOI

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FOI: Parking Tickets

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Wide range of excuses:It will cost too much: It’s too big to email, therefore we must print itIt is personal informationYou must be working for an organisation. We have passed it on to our technical team

FOI did not enable re-use

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Too much data?

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“But the Con-Lib government’s claim that it heralded openness was met with some scepticism, as the database is too vast and unusable for anyone but computer and data experts to decipher.”

One Day Later

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Two Days Later

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Conclusion

Open Data a key enabler – but its value is in its use

Important to grow open data “ecosystem” in civil society

Data should engage rather than just inform

Government must be prepared to listen and act

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Questions?

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End

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