Local Transparency

Gesche Schmid

Programme Manager Transparency

Local Government Association

Transparency code road show January 2014 www.local.gov.uk

Local Transparency

• transparency fosters greater accountability and democracy

• ready access and meaningful use of open data – Innovates and transforms local public services – Empowers citizen, business, community groups

• The pace of the transition from closed to open data is based on local needs and demand

• Local government supports a presumption in favour of transparency and open data

Local transparency• Open by default (Vision Redbridge)• Closed data is dead data (Future Cities)

“There are only two types of data in Bristol City Council: confidential data which we can’t share, and open data which will be made available.” Councillor Mark Wright, Bristol

• Used within public sector to transform services – Self assessment and self service(community budgets).– Sharing of Insight

• Make data open so that it can be reused by citizen, business, community groups, – Apps, location analysis, commissioning, engagement with communities

• £ 70 million value in efficiency savings through the better use of public sector information in local government alone (DeLoitte 2013)

Local Government sector-led approach• encourage a more meaningful approach to the release of

open data with the emphasis of a sector-led approach to improvement and innovation. – Local Transparency programme managed by the Local

Government Association (LGA)– Local Open Data Group to promote a common local data

infrastructure and local domain on data.gov.uk– Local government open data breakthrough programme

funded by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and voucher programme funded by Cabinet Office

– http://www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency

Local open data infrastructure

Enable local data to be easily discovered, combined and compared to make them more meaningful through the use of common standards.• common standards, classifications and taxonomies where

they do not already exist (esd toolkit)• Practical and technical guidance developed by LGA and

LeGSB which sets out some of the principles for publishing and linking data.

• a local domain on data.gov.uk to provide a common focal point for sharing and promoting local open data, common standards, apps and initiatives

• local government data and information services (LG Inform)

LG Inform: LGA data service

‘The LGA’s free data service which presents you with up-to-date published data about your local area and the performance of your council’.

www.local.gov.uk/lginform

Core reference data

Companies

Legislation

Local authorities (and more)

Administrativegeographies

Services, circumstances,Metrics, ...

Finance

LG Inform

http://standards.esd.org.uk

Inventories and aggregators of local data

Common inventory formats for harvesting

Common dataset formats for combining similar data from different councils

Common vocabularies to identify similar datasets and formats (Services List + Functions List)

Transparency code guidance• LGA and partners developed guidance to provide

practical help to local authorities to – publish local data to meet the needs of the code

and to – add value for reusing the data

• The LGA will review and update existing guidance for publishing spending, salaries and procurement

• Include outcome of LGA consultation on VCS spending

• Develop new guidance where necessary• Keep it simple, identify and promote standards and

best practice

http://www.local.gov.uk/practitioners-guides-to-publishing-data

Site to be updated once code is finalised

Spending data template

Spending data:Body Name Body Name Amount Pay Date Description 1 Description 2 Description 3Bristol City Council http://statistics.data.gov.uk/id/local-authority/00HB@SYMES HARTCLIFFE & WITHYWOOD COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP590 30/08/2012 EMPLOYEE TRAINING COSTSORGANISATION & LEARNING DEVELOPMENTLEARNING & DEVELOPMENTBristol City Council http://statistics.data.gov.uk/id/local-authority/00HB@SYMES HARTCLIFFE & WITHYWOOD COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP962.5 16/08/2012 EMPLOYEE TRAINING COSTSORGANISATION & LEARNING DEVELOPMENTLEARNING & DEVELOPMENTBristol City Council http://statistics.data.gov.uk/id/local-authority/00HB10 SQUARED LIMITED 922.5 29/08/2012 EQUIPMENT, FURNITURE & MATERIALSNURSERY SCHOOLSILMINSTER AVENUE NURSERY

London Borough of

Redbridge

Local government support• Collate responses from the sector on transparency code and

submit LGA response to DCLG (e-mail transparency@local.gov.uk with comments)

• Develop guidance on publishing data in collaboration with the sector, DCLG, LeGSB and ICO

• Develop and promote standards and data services (LG Inform and LG Inform Plus)

• Identify good practice and case studies• Manage open data breakthrough and voucher programme• Hold workshops across the country to promote a greater

understanding and responsibility for the opening up of data within local authorities

Open Data Breakthrough Programme

• enables open data release and ease of access to open data to stimulate engagement, innovation and growth

• overcome particular technical barriers in opening up data so that the data can be more easily used in onward applications, tools and services

• develop concepts, tools, services, standards or systems which directly lead to the opening up of data

• promotes standards and good practice in opening up data. • Almost 50 applications: 19 successful project applications in

2013/14• Further funding in 2014/15: await further announcements on

www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency

Open Data Breakthrough Projects 2013/14

• Peterborough City Council - Index of open data sets to aid comparison across councils.

• Kent County Council - Local government legal and business guidance as open data

• Redbridge Council - DataShare• Barnet London Borough - Barnet Data

Store• Cheshire East Council - URIs for natural

neighbourhoods• Hampshire County Council - Linked

Open Data Planning Register• Leicester City Council -The automation

of the publishing of Open Data and internal MI data in a standard, machine readable, linked format

• Lancashire County Council - Lancashire Local Information Service (LIS) Project

• Cambridgeshire County Council - Cambridgeshire Insight Open Data: Stimulating Economic Growth and Encouraging Innovation.

• Devon County Council - Local Government Community Data – opportunities for localities and businesses*

• Leeds City Council - development of the West Yorkshire Observatory* and Hackathon

• City of York Council - York Open Data – Empowering communities to access services (not able to present today)

Open Data Breakthrough Projects 2013/14

• London Borough of Harrow – Hot Harrow

• London Borough of Hounslow – Customer Data Gateway

• London Borough of Lambeth - Cooperative Council Community Data Project

• London Councils - Intelligent London: Skills Match

• North Somerset Council – Customer Information Portal and Dashboard

• Sunderland City Council – Sunderland Software City Data Brokerage

• Surrey Heath – County wide Planning Open Data

Voucher Scheme

• £700K of funding to local authorities for publishing data to certain standards to provide more consistent, reusable data from local government.

• Local authorities will receive a voucher if they publish their data to given standards.

• managed through the LG Inform Plus (formerly esd toolkit) programme funded by Cabinet Office, through the Public Sector Transparency Board

• Further announcements to follow

Services supporting

Local transparency and open data

Local Transparency: http://www.local.gov.uk/local-transparency,

Email: transparency@local.gov.uk

LG Inform: www.local.gov.uk/about-lginform, Email: LGInform@local.gov.uk

Esd toolkit: www.esd.org.uk