Data release plans update
The opening up of government data continues, while digital archives appear secure.
As well as regularly releasing public sector data (including new releases such as the online catalogue of cloud ICT services for public sector procurement), the Cabinet Office is to increase private sector involvement in publishing data.
In March, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude announced that an independently-chaired data strategy board is to be formed, advising government on what data is to be released, as well as “how they should be paid for and which should be available free of charge.”
To date over 40,000 data files (over 5,400 data sets) have been released by government in areas such as health, education, transport, crime and justice, through the data.gov.uk website, which was launched under Labour in January 2010. Maude has said that the open data site is to be revamped and re-launched in the coming months.
Last November, the Cabinet Office published further detail on open data measures announced in the Autumn Statement. Estimating that the direct and indirect economic value of public sector information in the UK is worth £16 billion a year, the Government announced that it will:
• legislate to empower the Civil Aviation Authority to publish data on airline and freight carriers’ performances;
• design the universal credit ICT system so that aggregate benefits data can be published during the first year of live running (its phased introduction will commence in October 2013);
• explore opportunities to link welfare data sets to other government and commercial data sets to increase their industrial value; and
• provide £10 million in funding over five years to establish the world’s first open data institute (to help business exploit data release opportunities);
In January, the Cabinet Office published the responses it received to its ‘Making Open Data Real’ public consultation, which ran from August to October last year. A majority of respondents felt that public bodies and those given public funds should be subject to open data obligations. A significant number, however, were concerned that the consultation failed to address the questions of how personalised and pseudonymised data can be used openly given the implications for confidentiality and privacy.
Data released should be available for re-use and be free, with government accepting that “open data will pose new cost implications.” Some argued that the enhanced ‘right to data’ will have to be enshrined in legislation.
On government ICT contracts, “respondents broadly agreed it will be necessary to incorporate open data standards into future contracts in order to effectively implement an enhanced right to data.”
There was broad agreement on what data government should collect and publish routinely: financial, non-personal, delivery and performance, user satisfaction, core data related to government priorities, geographic data, and those for which there is an existing demand.
The National Archives is, meanwhile, dismissing talk of a dark age for archives, predicted by some researchers. “Things are not all rosy, but things are absolutely not as bleak or as bad as a lot of researchers would have you believe,” says Tim Gollins, its head of digital preservation.
“Electronic information generally tends to get kept around much more than paper does, because paper was very costly to manipulate,” adds Gollins. While storage of digital material “has to be managed more proactively” than paper-based systems, such management is normal good practice among IT departments. “You shouldn’t get the impression that data is haemorrhaging away in any way; it absolutely is not.”
The overwhelming majority of data are in a small number of very popular formats that are unlikely to be abandoned by the IT industry. Even if such formats were discarded, Gollins notes that there would be a “huge economic benefit” for someone in providing a solution.
