blackburn with darwen open data policy

8/6/2019 Blackburn With Darwen Open Data Policy

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Blackburn with Darwen Open Data Policy

Version 1, June 2011

Introduction

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is committed to the centrally driven agendaof transparency. Tied to this commitment is a determination to publish any data

generated or derived from our actions which are funded by the tax payer. While this is

a big commitment which if approached incorrectly could lead to many Officer hours,

it is also acknowledged that a lot of the data that we produce is either never

publicised, published in a format which other people struggle to use, or incorrectly

licensed (or not licensed at all) all of which lead to us appearing to be less

transparent in our transactions than we actually are.

This document is intended to enable and encourage Officers and management within

Blackburn with Darwen to publish transparency data in the correct format with the

correct levels of peer review. It is not a definitive document, however, as publishingall data is sometimes neither appropriate nor advisable and for this reason we advise

taking advice not only from Policy but also from Communications should you be

unsure of the validity or appropriateness of publishing your data.

Background

The public sector transparency board was convened under the last government and

has persisted under the current coalition. Its aim is to make the transparency agenda

the core of all government business and to ensure all Whitehall Departments meet the

deadlines for issuing key datasets (referred to from this point onwards as open data).

The establishment and continued funding/resourcing of data.gov.uk, the website

where these key datasets are all signposted (including the over 25,000 NHS spend

and the over 500 local government spend) are seen as further signs that central

government and the current administration are committed to this agenda.

With this as a background, it can be stated that this drive to open datasets will not go

away and the public consultation on the Code of Recommended Practice for Local

Authorities on Data Transparency in February this year, the reaction to which can be

found in Appendix 1 further illustrates this commitment. This agenda is not going to

go away. The consultation recommended a basic list of datasets which all LocalAuthorities should publish and this is seen as the bare minimum required.

However, you must do this is not the only reason for us to adhere to these directives

as an organisation. The wider narrative encloses the success of the London Data Store

and the subsequent Manchester Data Store which has taken the datasets published

voluntarily by Boroughs (among others) and combined them, presenting a one stop

shop of datasets which allow developers and SMEs access to free data upon which to

build iPhone applications, mobile web interface and other innovative opportunities

in other words building things with the free data and creating sellable products on the

back of them creating a data economy.


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The secondary assumption of this document is that in a Borough with a

disproportionately high youth population who will soon require employment, datasets

released can enable local entrepreneurs to create their own businesses based on the

data, whilst in the process making the local populations lives easier. Further examples

of how data has been used in other areas can be found in Appendix 2.

Advice & guidance

I think this is something which policy and performance should complete but Im

guessing it needs to mention adequate checking of validity of datasets, passing the

raised eyebrow test if the data is financial (give the data to someone who has no idea

what it is, get them to flag anything which looks ridiculous, for heavens sake publish

your monetary financial transactions with any foreign company in UKP sterling so we

dont end up in a situation where someone thinks Yen are pounds and accuses of

spending ridiculous amounts of money on Japanese restaurants as happened in

another Authority. Also, put revision policies in place, ensure 1 person within

Department sets up a calendar reminder to ensure this data is revised etc. DPA

guidance also needs to be included along with implications of cross identification of a

household i.e. with long term serious condition information, much care needs to be

taken if we have this data not sure we do though.

Also need to make point about publishing in appropriate format, i.e. pdf find but an

xls is way better for playing with the data, benchmarking and doing useful things with

it.

We need to talk about the policy hub and whether datasets should sit on

there as part of the transparency drive as policy and how we make itand engagement and how that influences all tied together. A lot of data is

currently out there (see below) but is not referenced or stored in one place

or is in a useless format and so people think were not publishing open

data when actually we are when speccing out the policy hub, the ability

to keyword or tag entries and documents will be immensely helpful in

this. This then needs to tie into a bigger discussion about whether the

policy hub needs to be built right now or whether it can wait until the

procurement of a new system. Wordpress might be an option for this but

Lee is already maxed out time wise so is there any money for gettingsomeone else to do this?

Further information

For further information and guidance, please contact:

Policy & Performance

Web team???????

Data.gov.uk guidance page

Public sector transparency board page

Linked govRewired State


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Making a difference with data

This section needs to be peer reviewed I think but the above needs to be

finalised first.

blackburn with darwen open data policy

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