At the meeting of APPSI on 22 July 2010, members heard a presentation by The National Archives staff on the Transparency Agenda. It was subsequently agreed that APPSI should express some views to the consultation now underway on the Public Data Transparency Principles and work programme. This note provides those views:

• APPSI has long argued that the government requires a strategy to prioritise information garnering rather than relying entirely on serendipitous data harvesting of what is readily available.  We understand that there is no strategy in place to prioritise datasets for incorporation in data.gov.uk.  We regard this as wasteful and unlikely to deliver the maximum benefit in the short or medium term.

• We welcome the Public Data Transparency Principles. But government’s working definition of ‘public data’ contradicts the ethos of the Principles in that it does not address the issue of public good.  The existing definition is almost entirely predicated upon the management and policy needs of government. It also makes clear that the data are those created as a by-product of public service delivery. Taken at face value, all this is a reversion to the Rayner Review of the 1980s. Given the Public Data Principles, the Prime Minister’s letter to departments of 31 May 2010 (see: http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/statements-and-articles/2010/05/letter-to-government-departments-on-opening-up-data-51204) and existing and putative legislation, we suspect this phrasing is an oversight and urge that government should reconsider this definition. A version more in tune with the Principles would be: ‘Public data’ are the objective, factual, non-personal data collected by government at all levels to meet policy, service delivery and public accountability purposes, to enhance the capacity of individuals to be active citizens and to facilitate innovation.

• The first Public Data Principle: 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 formats can not be met without effective consultation with users – current and latent.  Such consultation is difficult – as the long experience in the official statistics world makes clear. Without it however success will only be by luck. We understand that the Transparency Board will consider user representation. We urge a more purposeful and planned engagement with the user community rather than simply providing data in the hope that this will meet needs. 

• In order for government to make data freely available it is important that the public task, which generates the information, is clearly defined. We are pleased to hear that this matter is under active discussion and look forward to seeing the results.

• APPSI’s members from the devolved administrations pointed out that the Transparency Agenda is very Whitehall-centric and more needs to be done to establish a relationship with those administrations. 

• One member commented that, based on his experience, data.gov.uk is very confusing as the data is available in formats that can’t easily be re-used and metadata is very limited in explaining the characteristics (hence reliability) of the data. He recognised that this might be transitory given the early stage of development of the web site. Has there been any investigation of the usability of the web site and the active use of the data therein?

• It was agreed amongst APPSI members that measuring the economic and social value of data.gov.uk would be difficult, not least because of the shift of policy outcomes emphasis between administrations.  Given the significance of the whole workstream, the expenditure of public funds and the strong political support, APPSI members nevertheless believe it would be responsible for a benchmark to be established now so that changes wrought by data.gov.uk could be assessed effectively at some stage (e.g. in three year’s time).

• In addition, APPSI members debated the trade-offs between continuing to publish data in existing, internationally-defined standards specific to a discipline and re-engineering them into the more universal form underpinning data.gov.uk.  We concluded that the relative merits of these might be case-specific, that the resources required for any re-engineering were not clear to us and that indeed both approaches might end up running in parallel.

These views have been posted on data.gov.uk at:  http://data.gov.uk/blog/new-public-sector-transparency-board-and-public-data-transparency-principles

On 31 March 2010 Communities and Local Government published the then Government's response to its consultation on policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey.

In its response, CLG set out its intention to move to a commercial relationship with Ordnance Survey to provide mapping products and services to Government, and, subject to discussions, the entire public sector, under a centrally-funded Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA).

CLG now confirms that a PSMA for provision of Ordnance Survey GI data to all of the public sector in England and Wales will come into effect from 1 April 2011. CLG has published a Transition Plan, setting out the scope of the PSMA and plans to implement the agreement by 1 April 2011. See the Transition Plan.

VILNIUS 17TH SEPTEMBER 2010, 11:30-13:30
 
Internet Governance Forum 2010 - Workshop 120
“Public sector information online: democratic, social and economic potentials”

All stakeholders worldwide are invited to participate and join us in discussing the democratic social and economic potentials of public sector information online. 
 
The Workshop is taking place as part of the International Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2010: ‘Developing the Future Together’. (http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/)
 
The Workshop is jointly organised by Proyecto Aporta (http://www.proyectoaporta.es/web/guest/index) and the European Public Sector Information Platform (ePSIplatform) (http://www.epsiplatform.eu/).
 
Registration is Open
http://www.igf2010.lt/index.php/en/welcome/index
 
 
Options for Participants:
 
1. Attend and participate in workshop 120 and the IGF5 event (onsite)
2. Participate in workshop 120 remotely via the remote moderator
3. Actively use social media tools such as twitter during the IGF5 and in particular workshop 120 to promote public sector information and the important role that it plays in society

The following bodies are involved in the presentation of workshop 120:

The Spanish Aporta project
The European Public Sector Information Platform
The Australian auPSI information platform
The KM Africa-KnowledgeHub
The Information Society Development Committee under the Government of the Republic if the Lithuania
IT for Change
Electronic Frontier Foundation
PSI Alliance

The Public Sector Transparency Board, which was established by the Prime Minister, met today for the first time. The Board will drive forward the Government’s transparency agenda, making it a core part of all government business and ensuring that all Whitehall departments meet the new tight deadlines set for releasing key public datasets. In addition, it is responsible for setting open data standards across the whole public sector, listening to what the public wants and then driving through the opening up of the most needed data sets. Chaired by Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the other members of the Transparency Board are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Professor Nigel Shadbolt from Southampton University, an expert on open data, Tom Steinberg, founder of mySociety, and Dr Rufus Pollock from Cambridge University, an economist who helped found the Open Knowledge Foundation. At their first meeting they discussed some new Public Data Transparency Principles and set out a working definition of “Public Data”.

See the announcement on the data.gov.uk website for more details.

A wealth of new information about London's Tubes, buses and river services is being made available online so that web developers can use it to create products such as apps (mobile phone applications) that help passengers.  From today developers can also use the data for commercial gain without the need to get permission from Transport for London (TfL). See the announcement on the TfL website.

The Prime Minister has today launched a radical plan to open up Government data to the public.

In a letter sent to all Government departments, David Cameron has set out ambitious plans to open up data and set challenging deadlines to public bodies for the publication of information on topics including crime, hospital infections and Government spending.

The letter also announced that MySociety founder Tom Steinberg will advise ministers on the development and implementation of the transparency agenda.

Whitehall departments will begin to release new data to the public this week, starting with senior civil service salaries, MRSA infection data on a hospital-by-hospital basis and the Treasury’s COINS database of public spending.

The Centre for Technology Policy Research has today published a report entitled Open Government: Some Next Step for the UK 

This report aims to serve two purposes: to establish a more widespread understanding of the significance of open government, and to provide a clear pathway towards its delivery in the UK.

The report proposes a series of recommendations that will build momentum behind recent initiatives such as the Power of Information and the Rewired State to improve the use of public information and re-think our public services to help advance and embed the necessary cultural and technical changes required to help make open government a reality in the UK.

The Commission has today published its Digital Agenda in order to guide its legislating and policy formation activities in the next 10 years.

"We must put the interests of Europe's citizens and businesses at the forefront of the digital revolution and so maximise the potential of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to advance job creation, sustainability and social inclusion", said Commission vice president for the digital agenda Neelie Kroes. "The ambitious strategy set out today shows clearly where we need to focus our efforts in the years to come. To fully realise the potential of Europe's digital future we need the full commitment of Member States, the ICT sector and other vital economic players."

The Commission’s priorities on PSI include:

Greater release of public sector information

“Public authorities should play their part in promoting markets for online content. The challenges of convergence should be addressed in all reviews of public policy, including tax matters. For example, governments can stimulate content markets by making public sector information available on transparent, effective, non-discriminatory terms. This is an important source of potential growth in innovative online services. The re-use of these information resources has been partly harmonised, but additionally public bodies must be obliged to open up data resources for cross-border applications and services.”

Simplifying copyright clearance, management and cross-border licensing by

• enhancing the governance, transparency and pan European licensing for (online) rights management by proposing a framework Directive on collective rights management by 2010;

• creating a legal framework to facilitate the digitisation and dissemination of cultural works in Europe by proposing a Directive on orphan works by 2010, to conduct a dialogue with stakeholders with a view to further measures on out-of print works, complemented by rights information databases; and

• by 2012, review the Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information, notably its scope and principles on charging for access and use.