1. Local Transparency and Open Data
What is the value of transparency and open
data to local government?
Gesche Schmid
@GescheSchmid
Programme Manager Transparency
Local Government Association
Local Transparency road show June 2014
www.local.gov.uk

2. Local Transparency
• transparency fosters greater accountability and
democracy
• ready access and meaningful use of open data
– Innovates and transforms local public services
– Empowers citizen, business, community groups
• The pace of the transition from closed to open data is
based on local needs and demand
• Local government supports a
presumption in favour of
transparency and open data
Social, environmental and economic

3. Drivers for transparency and open data
• Legal and policy drivers (accountability and
transparency)
• Information economy and economic growth
• Public service transformation (efficiencies and
effectiveness)
• Citizen and community engagement and self
service, localism (social growth)
• Smart places (environmental, social and
economic growth)

4. Legal and Policy Drivers to Open Data
• Legal Driver:
– FOI A: release of datasets for reuse
– INSPIRE: regulation for accessing
geospatial data
• Government Policy Drivers
– Open data white paper: Unleashing the
potential
– Government department open data
strategies
– National Information Infrastructure
– Open Government Partnership: Data
Charter
– Information Economy and Data Capability
• Local policy drivers:
– Improving Local Government
Transparency: Code of practice for local
government on transparency
– Localism: public service reform,
empowering communities

5. Open Data Charter
• Open Data principles:
– Open Data by Default
– Quality and Quantity
– Useable by All
– Releasing Data for Improved Governance
– Releasing Data for Innovation
• Technical commitment
– Use robust and consistent metadata
– And others….
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-data-charter

6. What is open?
Open Data Careful sharing of data Closed data
The vast majority of
government data will be
published as open data and
available through
Dataportals such as
data.gov.uk
Where it is not possible
to publish data as open
data, Government will
explore opportunities to
share this safely across
Government
Departments and where
appropriate with relevant
outside organisations in
“sandbox” / “datalab”
environments
Data remains secure
and is not shared
outside a particular
government
department or agency
Reasons could include:
•Privacy
•National security
•Some commercial
information

7. Government Response to Shakespeare Review set out a
three pronged approach to releasing further open data
National Information
Infrastructure
Make explicit the main
departmental data
through the ‘National
Information
Infrastructure’
Data requests
Maintain and strengthen
the bottom-up approach
we already have in place
via ODUG and
Data.gov.uk which allows
data businesses and
others to request
particular datasets which
are crucial to their
business
Data release
Continue to press for
the release of
particular ad-hoc
datasets that provide
the opportunity for
transformational
benefits for UK
citizens.
Central government approach:
How will local data feed into this approach?

8. Open Data User Group
• to help government understand the requirements of people
who are using, or could use, the datasets it collects.
• Advises Public Sector Transparency Board on key dataset
requests
– Develops business cases for key data requests submitted on
data.gov.uk
• Local government data requests for making data more easily
and openly accessible and available to a consistent format

9. Information economy
• Open data and information drive technology-led economic
growth. Estimated £ 1.8 bn direct value to the economy and
another £ 5 bn of indirect benefits (DeLoitte Marketstudy 2013).
– promote the smart use of information technology and data
in UK business in particular supporting SMEs
– ensure that citizens benefit from the digital age and are able
to use digital service confidently.
• Thriving information economy relies on
– public sector information to be easily and openly
accessible and interoperable based on standards
– A workforce that have the skill to make use of the data

10. Local transparency
• Open by default (Vision Redbridge)
• Closed data is dead data (Future Cities)
“There are only two types of data in Bristol City Council: confidential data
which we can’t share, and open data which will be made available.” Councillor
Mark Wright, Bristol
• Used within public sector to transform services
– Self assessment and self service(community budgets).
– Sharing of Insight
• Make data open so that it can be reused by citizen, business,
community groups,
– Apps, location analysis, commissioning, engagement with communities
• £ 70 million value in efficiency savings through the better use of
public sector information in local government alone (DeLoitte
2013)

11. Public service transformation
• Offering a more efficient and effective public
service through better collaboration:
Underpinned by sharing information and knowledge
Community and citizen engagement
• Citizen self service and self assessment of
services
• Community led services: Neighbourhood
planning, Right to buy, etc.
• Customer led transformation: Customer
insight, needs and demands

12. Smart Places
• A system or city/community that runs on its own
and is sustainable.
• Open Data plays an increasing role as a basis for
measuring the need and demand and the function
and performance of a city/community.
• Role of Local authorities: As a custodian of the city
or community may take the lead to publish and
manage civic data upon which others could build.

13. Open Data Engagement
• Government information and data are common resources,
managed in trust by government.
• A commitment to open data involves making information and data
resources accessible to all without discrimination; and actively
engaging to ensure that information and data can be used in a wide
range of ways.
• Engaging open data should:
★ Be demand driven
★ ★ Put data in context
★ ★ ★ Support conversation around data
★ ★ ★ ★ Build capacity, skills and networks
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Collaborate on data as a common resource
http://www.opendataimpacts.net/engagement/

14. Examples
Food Inspections as an indicator for choosing restaurants
Usage of Car parks as an indicator for town centre activity

17. LG Inform: LGA data service
‘The LGA’s free data service which presents you with up-to-
date published data about your local area and the
performance of your council’.
www.local.gov.uk/lginform

18. Approach to open data: Technical
implementation
• Choose a platform
• Reuse existing components and software
(inventories, schemas, apps, INSPIRE)
• Publish data as machine readable (3 star
proprietary, 5 star linked data)
• Publish your metadata on data.gov.uk
• Certify your data by the Open Data Institute for
level of openness
• Good data management is key

19. Approach to open data:
Engagement
• Open by default
• Get senior management buy-in
• Work collaboratively across the local area
• Find out what users want (FOI, Blogs, etc.)
• Encourage the meaningful use of data
– Get the users involved through hackathons, etc.
• Skills training and capacity building

23. https://certificates.theodi.org

24. Local Open Data Breakthrough Programme
• Enables open data release and ease of access to open data
to stimulate engagement, innovation and growth
• Overcome particular technical barriers in opening up data or
assisting in the release of locally or organisationally held data.
– Infrastructure and software that enables the release of data;
– Standardising data and making it linkable so that it can be easier
combined and compared
• Enables data to be better understood, accessed, shared and
reused as open data bringing together open data for onward
use and supporting local communities to understand and use
the data through applications
• Breakthrough fund 2013/14: 19 successful projects
• Funding for 2014/15: www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency

25. Open Data Breakthrough Projects 2013/14
“... There are some great
examples of authorities using
open data to benefit their
communities and we hope this
money will help local groups
and businesses access data
and drive social and economic
growth in their areas.“
Cllr Tim Cheetham, chair of the
local government review panel
http://www.local.gov.uk/local-
transparency

26. Open Data Breakthrough Projects 2013/14
• Lancashire County Council -
Lancashire Local Information Service
(LIS) Project
• Cambridgeshire County Council -
Cambridgeshire Insight Open Data:
Stimulating Economic Growth and
Encouraging Innovation.
• Devon County Council - Local
Government Community Data –
opportunities for localities and
businesses*
• Leeds City Council - development of
the West Yorkshire Observatory* and
Hackathon/Leed Data Mill
• City of York Council – Community
service directory – Empowering
communities to access services

27. www.cipfa.org/Services/Research-and-Statistics/Datashare

28. Neighbourhoods
.esd.org.uk

29. Cambridgeshire Insight: Who
uses our information…
51.9% are repeat visitors
Real Estate/Residential
Properties
Consumer
Electronics/Mobile
Phones
Home & Garden/Home
Improvement
Autos &
Vehicles/Motor
Vehicles
Financial Services/Investment
Services
In-Market Segments
Economy  Employment in the hi-tech community: Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
2012
 Cambridgeshire East of England Forecasting Model 2013 Baseline
Housing  Local Housing Allowance (LHA) Changes
 Registers of expressed need compared to lettings and sales
 Affordable Housing Completions
 Planning Permission Granted and Housing Completions
 Housing need register applicants parish preference, social rented lettings
and bidding behaviour
Demography  Cambridgeshire Dwelling Stock Forecasts 2012
 Cambridgeshire Population and Dwelling Stock Estimates 2012
 Cambridgeshire Population Forecasts 2012
Transport  Traffic Counts

30. Integrated transport and weather information pilot
https://itwip.sunderlandsoftwarecity.com/

33. LG Incentive Scheme
• The local government incentive scheme encourages
local authorities to publish datasets according to a
given schema which combined will deliver a national
view of the data.
• Themes: Planning applications, public conveniences,
licenced premises
• Managed through the LG Inform Plus (formerly esd
toolkit) programme funded by Cabinet Office,
through the Public Sector Transparency Board
• Soon to be released.
http://data.gov.uk/blog/every-forward-step-progress

34. Local Government sector-led
approach
• Encourages a meaningful approach to the release of open
data with the emphasis of a sector-led approach to
improvement and innovation.
– Local Transparency programme managed by the Local
Government Association (LGA)
– Local Open Data Group to promote a common local data
infrastructure and local domain on data.gov.uk
– Local government open data breakthrough programme
funded by the Department for Business Innovation and
Skills (BIS), data release and incentive programme funded
by Cabinet Office
– http://www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency

35. Services supporting
Local transparency and open data
Local Transparency: http://www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency
Email: transparency@local.gov.uk
LG Inform: www.local.gov.uk/about-lginform,
Email: LGInform@local.gov.uk
Esd toolkit: www.esd.org.uk