Compelling local government to publish Open Data

Submitted by Mark Baynes on Thu, 21/03/2013 - 13:30
Government

Hi.

I used the Contact Form on this site on the 16th March and have still had no reply (that's not good is it?) so thought I would dive in here.

I have one simple question to which I can not find the answer to. It's this:

Can public bodies such as a London Council  be compelled to publish their data in accordance with the Government's Open Data guidelines? If so what is the process? If not why not?

I live in Tower Hamlets and I am not getting very far with finding out what their schedule is for publishing Open Data. And I am sure there are lots of other people out there with the same problem.

And yes I have read more PDFs that I could believe existed on numerous different Open Data sites and am now heartily sick of reading about proposals, roadmaps, initiatives, think tanks, workshops and user groups. 

These are all pointless if there is no data to talk about. I am aware of the five step process. I have read the proposals by the DCLG and the recommended code of practise for local authorities on data transparency. I am a IT professional who spends all their waking hours dealing with digital issues. If I can not find the answer to this simple yet fundamental question what chance does an ordinary citizen?

So. What's the answer to my question?

Regards

Mark Baynes

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Comments

Compelling local government to publish Open Data

Posted by Owen Boswarva on Fri, 22/03/2013 - 07:21

Hi Mark,

This is rather a complicated subject. Generally speaking public authorities are not legally obliged to publish their data under an open data licence. However for many types of data it is now considered good practice to do so, and some specific types of data are subject to legislation that does make their publication mandatory.

I think what you probably want to know is whether the DCLG's Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency is legally enforceable. The answer to that is no, not at the moment.

The Code identifies categories of public data that DCLG considers should be made available by councils as open data (including data on spending over £500). Some councils have complied, others not so much.

DCLG has announced plans to make the Code mandatory, and has consulted on those plans. However the department has not yet confirmed its intentions or set a timeline for introducing the necessary regulations.

There is other legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Act, the Environmental Information Regulations, and the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations, that can sometimes be used to persuade or compel public authorities to release data. However the application of that legislation will depend on the particulars of the data you are trying to obtain.

-- Owen Boswarva, 22/03/2013

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At last!

Posted by Mark Baynes on Fri, 22/03/2013 - 10:18

Hi Owen

Thanks very much for the comprehensive reply. I thought the answer might be something like that!

As a newcomer to the wonderful world of Open Data I find it pretty odd that I am still having to look at using FoI to get what I want. And of course there is the 'Black Box' problem. How do I know what I want when I don't know what exists? Guess? 

There are three (at least!) other issues that need to be addressed.

1. Is there any validity in the conjecture that those public bodies who are glacial in their approach to publishing Open Data may well be the ones whose inner workings need most scrutiny? 

2. While the IT people in one of these public bodies may well be very keen to publish Open Data as they are public servants they may well not have the resources to do it. I was chatting to someone the other day who was a very genuine person who I am sure is committed to getting Open Data out there but his department is on overload. With the best will in the world it is not going to happen.  Which leads me on to...

3. Appropriate resourcing of Open Data publishing is dependent on politicians who have their own agenda. Which leads me back to 1.

Which means at the moment I and people like me are, to use a technical term, stuffed. So my view is we need less talking about how wonderful Open Data is and more direct action by the Government. 

Mark 

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Open data resources

Posted by Owen Boswarva on Fri, 22/03/2013 - 12:16

I suspect your questions are rhetorical, but I mostly agree. Some public authorities, including some councils, have been very supportive of open data. However the broader transparency agenda is as much rhetoric as reality. Most Government departments are prioritising release of information that supports specific policy initiatives, rather than information that the public wants or that might deliver real economic or social benefits.

IT staff in the public sector are often keen to support open data, but as you say they are usually under-resourced. There is a 'breakthrough fund' administered by the Data Strategy Board that public bodies (including local councils) can apply to if they need a bit of extra money to make open data available, but there still needs to be engagement at the executive level within the public body to get the ball rolling.

The 'black box' problem is certainly one of the main barriers that we need to overcome. In principle public bodies are supposed to maintain an Information Asset Register -- basically an inventory of their structured data assets. (I wrote a blog post about this last year.) However many don't publish them. The Cabinet Office also has a workstream to create a national data inventory, but so far we haven't seen much progress on that.

If there are any specific datasets you are trying to get released it might be worthwhile submitting a data request via the Open Data User Group, in addition to any direct requests you can make to the data holder under FOI.

-- Owen Boswarva, 22/03/2013

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Not just IT staff...

Posted by exstat on Sun, 24/03/2013 - 22:09

I suspect that the job of getting data out there as open data does not fall just on IT staff.  Quite a few government departments outsourced as much of their IT provision as possible over the last decade or so, and in some cases I doubt there was a great deal of technical expertise left - enough to procure contracts with external providers.  Contracts which set out very clearly indeed what the responsibilities of the outside provider are.

Then along comes Open Data.  Is support for that included in the contract?  I suspect not, so - sorry but if you want that, here's our rather high price.  Is the expertise available in house to support it?  Maybe, but it might depend on whether a couple of individuals already had a specific interest in the field.

So, yes, it needs resources and drive from a high level, though it is important that that drive is focussed on the value of datasets, not a determination to have more datasets available than anyone else.  But the aim must surely be for producers of datasets to be able to publish them as open without having to go through an IT intermediary which may or may not exist.  Eventually it should become sufficiently seamless to require little resource as such, but getting to that point does require significant resource.  Which can be a problem if you are being told to produce more on the day job with 10% less (again!).

Owen is right about how release gets prioritised.  I suppose it is inevitable in a world where ministers think a decision by itself does the job, but initially it seemed to be a numbers game, with terminally useless datasets being slapped up there as long as they were easy (I give you the list of ministers in a Department - anyone see a machine-readable reuse for that little beauty?).  Then the focus switched to what I call the "public sector are wasters" agenda, with a never ending sequence of analyses of spend by such and such over £500 for an army of armchair auditors to crawl over.  Now that is not useless, but I think it could be argued that in excess it is a distraction from more important developments.  The recent usage analysis showed that ONS data were easily the most heavily used - and that's not even the sum total of statistical data - but you wouldn't know it from the headline announcements of new datasets on data.gov.uk.

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Rhetorical and practical

Posted by Mark Baynes on Fri, 22/03/2013 - 13:29

Thanks again Owen

Yes the questions are rhetorical at one level but as I am working in an information vacuum I intend to see what i can do in practise. I am one of those annoying people who pursues questions until they get an answer (my journalism training I suppose). I will have a read of your post and consider my options.

regards

Mark

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Talking is still good.

Posted by Mark Baynes on Fri, 22/03/2013 - 10:24

An update on my attempt to find out what Tower Hamlets council has... I was phoned by the person responsible and pointed towards the 'Payments to Suppliers' link on their website which contains lots of data in CSV format. Which proves that talking is still better than typing on a keyboard.

The worrying thing is that I have searched the Tower Hamlets website maybe 20 times and never found the link and had to be guided to it twice by someone who knew where it was. And I am a UX designer. What chance would ordinary people have of finding it? Answer: None.

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sensible use of open data

Posted by mia@elatt.org.uk on Fri, 03/01/2014 - 13:56

The way I would envisage sensible use of open data is in matching employer needs to helping provider structure their provisions according to that need. Economists should be able to analyse the trends with the input from employers directly as well employment agencies and predict the need for the following year.. Also, I would revisit use and allocation of DWP, EFA and SFA funds, as well as any other educational funds within Councils to ensure that government monies are used smartly and duplication avoided.

Examples: 

1.Before providers apply for growth in EFA funds - they should be able to check the number  in "open data" pool of 16-18 NEET olds in their Borough and apply accordingly. Currently providers can easily get a growth for 16-18 apprenticeship - when one starts looking out for those 16-18 old NEETs and try to offer them educational provisions - one sees that they do not exist in their area despite the national news that they are somewhere out there - in this way Marketing funds could be used in a more sensible way..

2.ESF funding should also be targeted to fill in the Gaps in the existing government funds i.e. sudden migrant influx ESOL numbers needs in London to satisfy that need..

3. We should ensure that Job Centre Plus should be able to better understand what people are studying with providers already and stop putting obstacles on their way, saying you should stop your Web Design course now and do a course in how to dress for work, despite the fact that the person in question worked as a teacher for 10 years and knows how to dress for work ..threating to stop their benefits i.e., Job Centres should be working alongside providers to channel the needs of people on benefits and sending people for appropriate trainings that will get them jobs. Current Information Advice and Guidance sessions show that people on benefits do not attend JCP courses and find them not helpful -i.e. they already have a good CV - they do not need to go another course of how to write their CV..but they need new skills to get jobs.

4. Job Centres centre figures, like job outcome number, number of people registered on benefits and their age range and interests should be made available to providers to structure their provisions accordingly. 

5. Open data should be able to identify people with behavioural problems (anger issues, attitude, inability to communicate effectively, unable to wake up early and attend course/work on time etc.) Ideally, these people should be helped and courses made available to change their behaviour and make them employable and communicative, as well help to make them better parents..

Hope that the above ideas might help..

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