Levelling Up Open Data Publishing: A Session From #localgovcamp17

Today Lucy Knight and Martin Howitt ran a quick session at #localgovcamp17 on some of the challenges and opportunities for getting to the next stage with open data publishing. This post offers a brief summary of some of the key messages from that session.

From the starting perspectives of Quality, Speed and Cost the session explored ways of improving the current processes and who needs to be part of the conversation to make the changes needed. Specifically two, overlapping areas came to the forefront.

Culture

One of the early discussions centred around the development of a data culture within organisations. With specific regard to improving the quality of data that gets into a system in the first place, we talked about how even simple changes like a shared understanding of a need to capture consistent data can make a big difference to what local authorities have to work with. This made specific mention of call centre staff and other workers in contact with the general public, but the cultural element is something for the whole organisation to consider.

This is also a topic that comes up in many of our workshops and we’ll touch on it again below.

Procurement

The other main topic of discussion was in relation to procurement: local authorities regularly procure systems that capture, process and output data but often these systems don’t allow for the data to be pulled out in formats that help with the release of open data.

It became clear that in order for local authorities to procure systems that accelerated their publishing they need to consider how to work more closely with the suppliers of backend systems from the early stages. But beyond building this general approach to shared understanding, there needs to be some “simple” mechanisms that encourage suppliers to build the requirements in.

One such mechanism is making sure that specifications demand that data can be accessed from systems using tools that the local authority already uses, and specifically common tools such as APIs (due consideration should also be given to data schemas). All too often suppliers are offering the capability to generate reports, but these proprietary approaches don’t necessarily fit with how different departments want to access and use data.

One suggestion was that suppliers who don’t offer this functionality should be rejected—therefore applying pressure for suppliers to change—but the workshop participants were also keenly aware that procurement teams have a whole list of requirements to match and that provision for data publishing might be a long way down that list.

Again, much of this comes back to culture: how do local authorities build an internal culture of understanding the importance of provision for open data? Progress in this area provides not only immediate solutions but also the potential for future opportunities in capturing, processing and sharing open data.

On the 25th of September ODI Devon will be running a free, full day workshop in Exeter, exploring some of these issues and more.

The Data Place is a social enterprise dedicated to providing low-cost, accessible data infrastructure to support access to critical data for communities, facilitate innovation and smart city initiatives, foster a collaborative ecosystem, and allow public and civic organisations to better serve their stakeholders. You can find out more about us here: http://www.thedata.place.