Carol Tullo, The National Archives

14 April 2011

The Checks and Balances of a Transparent Public Sector World of Information

Government transparency and information re-use

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Transparency and public data

Coalition Agreement“ ….. Setting government data free will bring significant economic benefits by enabling

businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites.” (Section 16)

Public Data Principles for use and re-use

public data policy and practice will be clearly driven by the public and businesses who

want to use the data

public data will be released under the same open licence which enables free re-use,

including commercial re-use

public bodies should actively enable the re-use of their public data

public data will be published using open standards and in reusable form

release data quickly, and then re-publish it in linked data form

public bodies should maintain and publish inventories of their data holdings

http://data.gov.uk/wiki/Public_Data_Principles

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Regulation and standards

Access

• Freedom of Information

• Environmental Information Regulations

• Data Protection

• Information inventories and asset registers

Use and re-use

• PSI Regulations

• Information Fair Trader Scheme

• UK Government Licensing Framework

• Public task Principles and toolkit

Right to Data

Protections of Freedoms Bill (clause 92)To facilitate the release and re-use of datasets held by public authorities

Release Publication schemes FOI requests

Re-use Licensing - open and standardised Re-usable format - open and standardised

Revised Code of Practice under the Freedom of Information Act

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Policy objectives Public data publishing in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used

easily and with minimal cost by third parties

Commitment to implementing a “right to data” in their information strategies, giving the public access to datasets they request

Release of core reference data for free re-use from the Public Data Corporation

A ”key piece of architecture for public data re-use” – Nigel Shadbolt

Default common licence for PSI

Licensing tool for information providers across the public sector

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/

Open Government Licence – some headlines

Progress

Central government Including all key departments of state Ordnance Survey OpenData

Local government Increasing adoption across the public sector 180 local authorities so far

(up from 32 in December 2010) Becta, Parole Board, Audit Scotland, Scottish Funding

Council

Recommended by Local Government Association, Local Public Data Panel, Nigel Shadbolt, Tim Berners Lee

Marker for governments across Europe….

High value public datasets

Key elements Public task Information inventories (IARs) Licensing – UK Government Licensing Framework Charging policy

Public Data Corporation

"The Government is considering the merits of machinery of government changes to facilitate the development of a Public Data Corporation (PDC) through a sponsoring department. If the Government decides to proceed, a first step would be to establish a PDC Shadow Board. It will also create an inventory of datasets from key data-holding organisations. The Government, through the Cabinet Office, will also put in place a policy statement on data by autumn 2011 covering access and licensing terms for public data. "

(http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget.htm.

For PDC reference go to Government Assets section, page 50, paragraph 2.19)

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Standards and data publishing

• Standards and metadata publishing• 5* data publishing

Designed by Tim Berners-Lee in 2009 Promotes Linked Data as the best approach to putting data on the web

★ Put your data on the Web (any format) ★★ Make it available as structured data (e.g. Excel, CSV, instead of PDF)

★★★ Use open, standard formats (e.g. XML, RDF)★★★★ Use URLs to identify things (so people and machines can point at your

data)★★★★★ Link your data to other people’s data

• Provenance and authenticity • Risks and sensitivities

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Setting standards: UK legislation

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Leadership in Knowledge and Information Management• Knowledge Council – KIM profession in Government• Information Management Assessments • What To Keep • Digital Continuity • 20 year rule; delivery of transparency• Sensitivity review at scale• Collaborative tools and training• Civil Pages: community of interest• Knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer – best practice for

policy areas and profession

Good knowledge and information management enables betterhandling, sensitivity review and protection, release and publishing, transparency

and reusability

Image: Jac Depczyk

For good.For the record. For good.