Slides from my talk at the 13th European Conference on e-Government. Preliminary testing of Yu and Robinson's framework for evaluating characteristics of public sector data using data from the UK's data.gov.uk portal.

1. Open data and open
government in the UK:
how closely are they
related?
Martin De Saulles
University of Brighton
June 2013
13th European Conference on e-Government
University of Insubria, Como

2. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Context ConclusionsResearch

3. Long Tradition
• 1766 – Freedom of the Press
Act, Sweden
• 1966 – Freedom of Information
Act, US
• 2000 – Freedom of Information
Act, UK
• 2003 – Re-use of Public Sector
Information Directive, EU
• 2005 – Re-use of Public Sector
Information Regulations, UK
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

4. Multiple reasons
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
• Accountability
• Transparency
• Change culture
• Pre-empt whistle blowers
• Improve safety
• Improve efficiency
• Aid innovation
• Generate tax receipts

5. Impacts
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

6. Impacts
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

7. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Source: Shakespeare Independent
Review of Public Sector
Information, 2013

8. Issues/Questions
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Open Government
• Accessibility
• Exemptions
• Enforcement
• Reactive/proactive
Open Data
• Accessibility
• Formats
• Copyright
• Currency
• Frequency
• Reliability
• Reactive/proactive
“Is the right data being released in the best formats and at the appropriate time
for users to maximise its social and economic benefits?”

9. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
ResearchContext Conclusions

10. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

11. Overview
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Publisher Datasets % of total
Office for National Statistics 847 9%
Department for Communities and Local Government 740 8%
NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care 589 7%
British Geological Survey 363 4%
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 329 4%
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology 298 3%
Welsh Government 241 3%
Department of Health 239 3%
Department for Children, Schools and Families 227 3%
Home Office 212 2%
All Datasets 8981 100.00%
Total of 786 publishers
Top 10 publishers (1.2% of all publishers) account for 45.48% of all datasets
Data correct as of 28 Dec 2012

12. Overview
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Formats Legal

13. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

14. Evaluating data.gov.uk
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
“The popular term “open
government data” is, therefore,
deeply ambiguous – it might
mean either of two very different
things. If “open government” is a
phrase that modifies the noun
“data”, we are talking about
politically important disclosures,
whether or not they are
delivered by computer. On the
other hand, if the words “open”
and “government” are separate
adjectives modifying “data”, we
are talking about data that is
both easily accessed and
government related, but that
might not be politically
important.” (Yu and Robinson,
2012 p 181-182)

15. Analysis
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
8,981 data sets (December 2012)
Sample of 100 (random)
Adaptable (CSV, XML) – scores 1
Inert (PDF, Word, HTML) – scores 1
Service delivery (bus times, mapping etc) – scores 1
Public Accountability (salary levels, complaints etc) – scores 1
95 data sets categorised ( 5 excluded for ambiguity)

16. Adaptable
Public
Accountability
Inert
Service
Delivery
50
32
45
63
Note: Data collected on 28 December 2012, based on sample of 100 datasets
Results
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

17. Results
• Small sample so treat with
caution
• Strong bias toward service
delivery – from accountability
• Less obvious re. adaptable but
CSV dominates
• Dead links an issue
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

18. Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
ConclusionsContext Research

19. Conclusions
• Yu and Robinson offer useful
framework
• Differentiate public
accountability (open government)
from generative resource (open
data)
• Room for calibration
• Work needed on making data more
adaptable
• International agreement on
definitions to allow benchmarking
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013

20. References
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. (2013) Shakespeare review: an
independent review of public sector information (Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shakespeare-review-of-public-
sector-information)
De Saulles, M. (2007) “When Public Meets Private: Conflicts in Information
Policy”, Info, Vol 9, No. 6, pp 10-16.
Yu, H. and Robinson, D. (2012) “The New Ambiguity of Open Government”, UCLA
Law Review Discourse, Vol 59, pp178-208.

21. Questions
Martin De Saulles ECEG 2013
Dr Martin De Saulles
Principal Lecturer
University of Brighton
www.mdesaulles.net
@mdesaulles
mrd@brighton.ac.uk