Getting more from open data by applying standards

Standards in UK & Progress

The Local e-Government Standards Body (LeGSB)

Paul Davidson, CIO Sedgemoor District Council and Director of Standards of the Local e-Government

Standards Body (LeGSB)

26th September 2012, Local and National Government Open Data across Europe iNetwork, Cambridge

• Mission

– To promote eStandards that support Efficiency, Transformation, and Transparency of Local Services

– Syntax, Semantics, Quality, Rights, Authentication, Transport, Governance

• Funded by sponsorship from

– Cabinet-Office

– Driving the work of the Information Domain

– Information Standards to support the Infrastructure initiatives from the government ICT Strategy

– DWP

– Universal Credits, ATLAS message formats

– Communities and Local Government

– Transparency, Comparable Financial Data

• Governance

– Originally an ODPM National Project

– A part of the iNetwork

– Accountable body is Tameside Council

• Executive Steering Board

– LGA, SOCITM, DWP, CLG, C.O., Health, Education, Intellect, Information Commissioner’s Office

• Representing to

– CTO Delivery Group

– UK Location Council

– Knowledge Council

– EC, ISA European Interoperability Architecture Working Groups

Local eGovernment Standards Body (LeGSB)

Code of recommended practice …

• The Code asks local authorities to follow the three principles of transparency when publishing data -

Demand-led, Open and Timely.

• The Code also proposes the minimum datasets that should be released for reuse

• Publication should be in open and machine-readable formats. The recommended 5 step journey to a fully

open format is: – * Available on the web (whatever format) but with an open license

– ** As for one star plus available as machine-readable structured data (e.g. Excel instead of image scan of a table)

– *** As for two star plus use a non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV and XML)

– **** All the above plus use open standards from the World Wide Web Consortium (such as RDF and SPARQL) and

– ***** All the above plus link your data to other people’s data to provide context.

Information Contexts

• OPERATIONAL - Data about real

people and places, with real needs

and circumstances, using real

services, i.e. case work

• STATISTICAL - Aggregated

operational data – organised using

common classifications and

segmentations

• ANALYTICAL - The conclusions drawn

from an analysis of statistical data

• POLITICAL - The decisions taken to

shape services, e.g. budgets,

strategies, priorities, targets etc.

Examples and Projects

• Road Works

– An internal Dashboard, highlighting new and changed plans from public sector

bodies that affect our communities.

• Air Quality

– Turning rows of numbers into meaningful information

• Open Public Services

– What Local Services?, How much do they cost?, How good are they? etc

• Comparable Financial Information

– Meaningful comparisons on how financial resources are allocated

• Troubled Families

– How effective is the program

Road Works

• Thanks to Somerset County Council

– Spreadsheet of the planned road works over the

next 12 months

– … and again, a month later

Subject

Object

Predicate

Council

Supplier

pays

Sedgemoor

District

Council Zenith Print

(UK) Ltd

pays

<http://local.data.gov.uk/id/LocalAuthority/1234>

<http://local.data.gov.uk/def/pays>

<http://business.data.gov.uk/id/company/02050399>

•as a collection of ‘triples’

•where the meaning of each

part is described in an

ontology

•not for humans

•for machines, using

the uniqueness and

scalability of the

web

•using rdf, rdfs, owl, skos, etc

Linked Data over the Web

Road Works – as Linked Data

• An Ontology

– to describe the concepts, data,

and how they are related.

• Convert the spreadsheet

– To a series of triples

• Publish

– Load to a Triple store

Road Works – Querying

• What major road works are planned in Bridgwater – What else is also planned, by who, at the same time?

Road Works – Querying

• What’s new?

Road Works – Querying

• What has changed?

Air Quality

• What does this data mean?

Air Quality

• Hoes does it relate to this data?

What are the concepts in the data?

• How do they relate to each other?

• Which could be used to link to further useful information else where?

... so what ...

• Viewing

– Provide an HTML view of the data with click-able links to definitions from the Ontology, and identifiers.

– Shows the map points

– Can have custom layout in html using xslt

• Combining

– Can combine data with other Air Quality Data from other sources using the same Ontology

– Can combine with demographics, traffic counts, health incident statistics, etc

• Defining

– Threshold levels of air quality and health consequences

– Pollutants

• Querying

– what are the administrative geographies

– What air quality measuring points are within a radius / box

– Can slice the data via an API Call

Air Quality – Bristol City Council

http://bristol-data-epimorphics.dyndns.org

So – is there a pattern here?

• Local public

services

Why is publishing data vital for ‘open public services’?

Open Data White Paper – June 2012

We committed in the Open Public Services White Paper to

increase the choices citizens can make about the services

they use. Access to high-quality information about the

performance of public services is the foundation on which

citizens can make informed choices. In the responses to

the consultation, it was highlighted that, without access to

quality data, informed choice will remain illusory and, more

importantly, undermines public trust.

Working with DCLG

• Open Public Services

– Enable local authorities and their partners to use data to tell the story of how public

services have been designed and commissioned in a particular locality

– Enable citizens, communities and businesses to better understand local priorities

and decision making, and engage more effectively in shaping and using local

services.

• Comparable Financial Data - continue to enhance public scrutiny, while

– be more transparent – by bringing meaning and context to financial data so that it

can be confidently combined, and compared;

– transform local services – by demonstrating how providing data to local residents

and stakeholders can enable them to participate in the prioritisation of local

resources, and support local accountability; and

– Identify and exploit efficiencies – by exploring how data can be shared and re-used

amongst partners in a more efficient, cost-effective manner.

Applying the approach to a locality

How do we make sense of this data?

Linking Financial Data

• Linking to core

reference data

Comparable Financial Data

• Focusing on …

– Payments for Goods and Services.

– What has been spent with who, on what, and for what purpose?

– Budgets

– What is planned to be spent for what purpose?

– Actual Income and Expenditure compared to a budgets

– What has been spent so far?

• Using joins ‘joins’ based on

– Supplier - Who is providing goods and services?

– Procurement Categories - What type of goods and services are being purchased?

– Budget Headings The purpose for spending

– Metrics The context for spending

– Location The organisations serving communities

Getting Involved

• A large scale pilot for Comparable Financial Data during 12/13

– prove the internal and external benefits and investment necessary to

publish comparable financial data

– create standards, implementation guidance, deployment models

• Publishing ‘Open Public Services’ data during 12/13

– Extract data from source systems

– Upload to TripleStore

– Visualise

– Dashboards

Legsb

The Local e-Government Standards Body

Info@legsb.gov.uk

www.legsb.gov.uk