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Open Government in Great Britain
Eleanor StewartHead of TransparencyForeign & Commonwealth Office@digenghmg20 May 2015
Today the UK is a transparency success story:
• Data.gov.uk– Used data to drive efficiencies in public services – Used data to improve accountability
• Legislated on release of data• Mandated Digital by default & open document
formats• Ranked no 1 in world • Working with OGP partners in 17 countries • Engage with data users • Created the ODI to build and support start-ups/data
users.
Magna Carta 1215• Citizens not Subjects • Everyone subject to
the law including the King
• Right to a fair trial • Check on the crowns
ability to levy taxes• 25 Barons elected
Bill of Rights 1689• laws should not be dispensed with or suspended
without the consent of Parliament; • no taxes should be levied without the authority of
Parliament; • the right to petition the monarch should be without
fear of retribution; • no standing army may be maintained during
peacetime without the consent of Parliament;• Protestant subjects may have arms for their defence
as suitable to their class and as allowed by law; • the election of members of Parliament should be free; • the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in
Parliament should not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;
• excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted;
• jurors should be duly impannelled and returned and jurors in high treason trials should be freeholders;
• promises of fines or forfeitures before conviction are void;
• Parliaments should be held frequently.
Hansard 1812
The edited records of all parliamentary debates, votes, written ministerial statements and answers from the Houses of Commons and Lords since 1812.
Followed by:
1832 Reform Act– Redrew constituencies– Expanded right to vote
(doubled the electorate)
1928 Representation of the People Equal Franchise Act
But more recently…
• 1994 code of practice on access to government information
• 1997 white paper “Your Right to Know”• 2000 Freedom of Information Act
Missing Records :
Wasting Public Money:
Power of Information Taskforce 2008-09
The start of work on data.gov.uk
Objectives• increase transparency• improve public services• release new economic and
social value and growth• make UK a global hub of skills
in the future of the Web
“So that Government information is accessible and useful for the widest possible group of people, I have asked Sir Tim Berners-Lee who led the creation of the World Wide Web, to help us drive the opening up of access to Government data in the web over the coming months".
Gordon Brown, 10 June 2009
Show Us A Better Way
1st Government Hack Day
Defined Open Data:
UNCLASSIFIED15
Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone for any purpose.
Revised Licensing
By May 2010
• Austerity predominant political theme• Politicians keen to force greater accountability
on public sector (culturally and financially) • Social media/new technology becoming
mainstream • Beginning of smartphone revolution • Had a data portal and had released c100
datasets; some csv’s some pdf’s• Data hadn’t been checked for
quality/consistency
Open Data = Transparency
Major Priority for Government “Greater transparency across Government is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account; to reduce the deficit and deliver better value for money in public spending; and to realise significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites using public data.”
David CameronMay 2010
Citizen Consumers
“Transparency Temple”
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Open Government
Data Users
Government releasing Open Data
Finding Data
Mandated PM Commitments• Names, grades, job titles and annual pay rates for most Senior Civil Servants with salaries above
£150,000 to be published • Names, grades, job titles and annual pay rates for most Senior Civil Servants and NDPB officials with
salaries higher than the lowest permissible in Pay Band 1 of the Senior Civil Service pay scale• Organograms for central government departments and agencies that include all staff positions to be
published in a common format• Names/titles of all Special Advisers, salaries where over Pay Band 1 • NDPB officials earning over £150,000• Local government officials earning over £150,000• Central government workforce including temps, consultants, etc. • Historic COINS spending data to be published online• New items of central government spending over £25,000 to be published online • All new central government contracts to be published in full • All new central government tender documents for contracts over £10,000 to be published on a
single website from September 2010, with this information to be made available to the public free• New items of local government spending over £500 to be published on a council-by-council basis • Full information on all DFID international development projects over £500 to be published online
from January 2011, including financial information and project documentation.• Government departments and agencies should ensure that any information published includes the
underlying data in an open standardised format. • Publish the energy use of government headquarters in real-time • New local government contracts and tender documents for expenditure over £500 to be published
in full • Crime data to be published at a level that allows the public to see what is happening on their streets • Value for money calculations of all government websites • Complete list of all Local Authorities and their contact details.
Also
• Every department and Public body must have an Open Data Strategy
• All departments have had to identify what data they hold
• Prioritized data that was already in the public domain in some form
• Have had to redesigning charging models to make data open
• Built a data request mechanism
League Tables of departments reported to Parliament
28
Looked for data that matters to citizens:
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Pt6)
• Information must released in a reusable way
• Broadens definition of “dataset”
• Consolidates copyright and reuse guidance
• Defines criteria for charging for data
Quality of Data
Quality Issues:
Formatting Issues
Put your data on the Web (any format)
Make it available as structured data (e.g. Excel, CSV, instead of PDF)
Use open, standard formats (e.g. XML, RDF)
Use URLs to identify things (so people and machines can point at your data)
Link your data to other people’s data
Why 5 Linked Data?
National digital infrastructure being built
URIs for schools, roads, bus stops, post codes, admin boundaries...
Some of the data links across and connects other data together
Key data link points exist
This is not easy for government:
UNCLASSIFIED
A presentation on the usability or otherwise of the FCO data.
Reusable Data?
Handling the concerns of data owners..
“People hug their database, they don't want to let it go. You have no idea the number of excuses people come up with to hang onto their data and not give it to you, even though you've paid for it as a taxpayer.”
– Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
What are we doing about it?• National Information Infrastructure:
– Ontologies– Priority datasets (geotags)
• Developing API’s (as well as open data)• Re-engineering our IT systems to produce relatable
data• Building awareness of what data is and what
“Open” means• Mandating publication in Open Document Format • Working towards csv for all government data
(anything better is a bonus)
What difference does having data make to UK Citizens?
Public Services
Performance of healthcare providers
Performance of law enforcement
Performance of individual schools
Accountability of Government
Who is “government”
Where do my taxes go?
Is my money being spent well?
What do I get for it?
Links to thedocuments
Releasing Social & Economic Value
Transport • ~500 Applications
(mobile, web, others)
• ~5000 people involved in “app industry”
• As a transport project alone, evaluated by usual economic criteria:ROI = 58:1
• Transport For London have stopped making their own apps
App Development
Crisis Mapping
Travel industry
Start ups
Pesky People – 999 App for the profoundly deaf
What are we doing now?
Stimulating Demand from business and citizens
Trying to release the data people want
Making sure data is truly re-usable and useful
Working to ensure Privacy of Personal Data
Delivering Incrementally
Engaging with Users and teaching Coding
Promoting the use of Data
To create an Open Data Ecosystem
OGP National Action Plans
• Launched 2nd NAP in October 2013 at OGP Summit
• Civil Society Assessing progress
• Beginning to think about 3rd NAP
Ongoing Challenges
• Quality & Usability of the data we’re releasing (and technology we’re using)
• Overcoming fear of releasing information or engaging (political & official)
• Educating officials ; cultural change• Creating informed citizens and active
users/marketplaces
The challenge of open government:
“Government ought to be all outside ad no inside…Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, avoids pubic places and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety” ― Woodrow Wilson 1912; The New Freedom
Bernard: But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know.
Sir Humphrey: No. They have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity in guilt; ignorance has a certain dignity.
Bernard: But if the Minister wants Open Government?
Sir Humphrey: You just don’t give people what they want if it’s not good for them. You give Brandy to an alcoholic?
Questions?