By William Perrin
As a member of the Local Public Data Panel I organised a slightly experimental meeting with some people in the West Midlands who re-use local data and some folk from several local authorities in the West Midlands. For all sorts of purdah reasons I can’t attribute comments – if you weren’t there and wanted to come along – apologies, we shall organise another.
The conversation between council officers quickly turned to ‘We publish data on Z, what do you release?’. When we brought people into the chat who actually re-use data that councils release they weighed in with ‘Fred over there releases data on X, why don’t you?’ To which the council people gamely responded ‘Happy to, didn’t know you wanted it nor indeed that they released it’. People went further than that – there was rapid agreement that a simple, quick and ‘not sufficient’ dirty list of data that was already released would be helpful. This would then act as a reference point for people to ask for more.
In an ideal open data world local public bodies would release all non-personal data. But that isn’t yet where we are. My pragmatism, formed of years inside bureacracies suggests that we won’t just get there with a wave of the wand nor instantly even with a magic change in the law. People who are agents for change inside a bureacracy often need an external reference point to help them drive change within. A comparison list can both help with a sense of competition and also reassure the cautious that they are not going out on a limb. The trick then is to keep making the list longer so that no one can say they are done. As Carly Fiorina used to say ‘When you are done, you’re done’.
So I agreed to pull together an aggregate list of data that was being released. It may be that such a list exists that we haven’t spotted – had a quick look through CKAN but didn’t see anything obvious. And if a list does exist, it isn’t working if no one knows about it. Chris Taggart has already pulled together a remarkable resource of democratic services data.
As a starter for ten, here is the list of data sets Warwickshire are already releasing (more to follow I understand). Here is London’s list and here is the mighty Lichfield council. London Borough of Brent also has a list The government data store has these sets tagged with ‘local authority’. I am expecting others to add their lists in the comments over the next few days, please add yours. As the number of links grows we shall create an overarching list and find a better home for it.
On comments – moderation is on please keep things respectful, constructive, clean, non partisan and on-topic.
Thanks to Michael Grimes for hosting this at the citizenship foundation.
Tags: #opendata
I like your pragmatic approach and hopefully can help to take forward the development of a checklist of data held by Local Information Systems (LIS are observatories; usually online with the aim of supporting local partnerships). A study of Local Information Systems we undertook in 2007 found 179 datasets held by a randomly selected group of 9 Local Information Systems (LIS), see http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/localinformationsystems. Appendix 3 pages 98 to 111 provides details of the 179 data sets and sources.
As I highlighted at the time ” The largest data holding by any single system was 63 of the 179 variables (35 per cent). Interviews with system managers revealed two main causes for this relatively low level of coverage. Firstly, system managers do not know and do not have sufficient time to search for and regularly download all available data sets. Secondly, the amount of information held on local systems is determined by local needs, managers were keen to avoid ‘data overload’ for users.
More than half of the 179 data sets were collected from local sources. Eighty-four (of the 179) variables on systems are known to be available from central government sources. However, only 45 of these data sets have information at a fine geographical level of detail and 21 of these are becoming dated because they were collected as part of the 2001 Census. Shortcomings in data provided by central government and partners have encouraged LIS managers to find suitable local data to fill gaps.
In January we completed an exercise in Yorkshire and the Humber of five LIS. This found 269 datasets in total. It did not include 79 from the 2007 LIS study. We were therefore able to create a database of 348 data sets from Yorkshire and the Humber and the 2007 study. Last week we completed a study that found 221 datasets in five West Midlands LIS. The focus for all these studies was information to meet LSP targets, including LAA indicator targets. A quick look at those you provided links to suggests some of these have a similar focus, but many are more diverse.
A checklist of datasets, predominantly obtained from ‘local’ partners, would help to enlighten both users and providers about the data they might acquire or release respectively.
Paul Foley
Will: the aggregate list – and any other developing documents – may as well reside in a fixed page on here, added to as suggestions arise.
The datasets from Kent County Council’s Pic and Mix mashup platform are here http://picandmix.org.uk/categories. They don’t just include KCC’s datasets but also those from other councils and even other organisations in Kent (like haunted places!)
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[...] What data sets are local public bodies already releasing for re-use? « Local Data (tags: opendata information) [...]
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Birmingham…
Gritting routes via: http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/gritting (and mapped on OpenStreetMap!)
School performance data at: http://services.bgfl.org/cfpages/newperform/
Members’ contact data is published using hCard microformats, via; http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/members
More to follow.
Perhaps OpenlyLocal might add a main ‘Open Data’ URL for each authority (I’ve suggested that to them on Twitter)?
@countculture has replied; agreeing that @openlylocal will do so.
[...] What data sets are local public bodies already releasing for re-use? Local public data panel [...]
[...] What data sets are local public bodies already releasing for re-use? Local public data panel [...]
Here’s a list of existing datasets shared as part of the Observatory’s research:
http://www.wmro.org/downloads.aspx?type_id=4&s=A2Z
(I’m aware this area isn’t really ‘open’ data and needs quite a bit of work – something I’m keen to change based.)
OpenlyLocal now features an ‘Open Data’ URL for each authority which has one; plus a full list at http://openlylocal.com/councils/open