North Rhine-Westphalia I: Improve the quality and quantity of data from public service entities, and of election data (DE0042)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? North Rhine-Westphalia has been able to improve its good operating framework for open data and open government still further in recent years. Decisive progress has been made first and foremost in key areas such as legal certainty and technical infrastructure. For example, the June 2020 introduction of Section 16a of the eGovernment Act NRW created a legal foundation that obliges the Land authorities to publish their data as open data. Local governments may also publish their data in the same way. In connection with this, a central Open Data Advisory Unit was set up for authorities within North Rhine-Westphalia. It is attached to the office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Land government. An open data commissioner has also been appointed for each Land ministry. Where technical infrastructure is concerned, measures have included the successful implementation of the commitments set out in the second Open Government Partnership National Action Plan. The development of a software tool gave Land and local authorities the opportunity to publish their data in a free, easy and user-friendly way via the central Land metadata portal, Open.NRW. Sixteen mainly smaller local governments in NRW have since decided to use this service and to make their data available to the public. The number of data sets published on the portal has increased from approx. 3,800 to some 4,500. Despite this considerable progress, there is still a wealth of NRW data still to be uncovered. Plenty of very interesting and as-yet unpublished data is held not with the authorities, but with public service entities. Mobility data is held with transport companies and networks, for example. There are isolated offers to support active open data practices at public service entities in NRW, but no comprehensive, systematic approach. The broad publication and centralised availability of this public-sector data, too, is nonetheless important, especially since much of it is “high-quality” (per the PSI Directive). In other words it is seen as especially useful both economically and socially. The quality and availability of this data are crucial to its actual economic and social benefit. While North Rhine-Westphalia is already very well positioned in this regard, not least because of its comprehensive experience in and action on open data since 2014, as well as its statutory regulation (Section 16a eGovernment Act NRW), there is still room for improvement where data quality is concerned. Election data is shown in a variety of formats and charts at each separate election, for example, but the data is not structured openly and uniformly, and each administration decides for itself what exactly will be displayed.

What is the commitment? The aim is to create the technical and legal frameworks to publish as much data as possible from public service entities as open data. Furthermore, all public-sector data providers from NRW (public service entities, local governments and Land authorities) are to be given targeted support so that they are able to publish data of a high quality in as standardised and user-friendly a format as possible. Election data are to be standardised, and providers’ attention drawn to the quality of the data they supply. All in all, these measures are intended to promote broader use of the data for economic and social purposes. With its PSI Directive on open data and the re-use of public service information, the EU also sets out specific requirements in this regard. These are currently being transposed into national law. In the case of Germany this is the Data Usage Act (Datennutzungsgesetz). Authorities at Land and local government level, as well as public service entities, are affected by these regulations. With this commitment, NRW aims to push the implementation of the PSI Directive elsewhere in Germany, too, in a way that is as proactive and sustainable as possible.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem? The creation of a technical service to publish data from public service entities free of charge on the Land open data portal – Open.NRW – is intended to help these entities become part of the open data landscape in NRW. Opening up the Land’s central open data infrastructure to these entities also establishes sustainable ways of implementing the PSI Directive (Data Usage Act) at Land level. A standardisation procedure is to further improve the quality of the data in question. A public election data standard, meanwhile, should enable the results of any election to be used publicly in a defined form. A web API will be used to collect raw data from all local governments, feed it into a Land-wide election data portal and then make it available again via the API in the standard format that has been developed. The prepared data will then be provided in raw form via an easy-to-use web interface on the website. Training and technical tools for providers of data on the Open.NRW portal will further support better data quality. Training courses for data providers are to ensure that the latter structure and describe their data so that it can easily be found, and so that it is available in a standardised, user-friendly form. Technical tools will help to implement this with the reporting and testing functions they offer.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? The intention behind this commitment is to help achieve greater transparency by publishing additional data and by improving its quality. It also aims to harness technology in the interests of greater open access, by expanding a central platform to facilitate data access and use. For data providers, this reduces costs and barriers, which are two of the main reasons preventing publication.

Additional information • DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/1024 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information (recast): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L1024&- from=DE • This commitment follows on from the commitment made by North Rhine-Westphalia in the second National Action Plan in the framework of the Open Government Partnership: North Rhine-Westphalia I Developing infrastructure and framework conditions for open government in North Rhine-Westphalia • Open Government Working Group (German): https://open.nrw/der-arbeitskreis-opengovernment • Open.NRW open data portal: https://open.nrw/ • Standard for open election data – website: https://offenewahldaten.de/

Milestones Start Date Implementation by Creation of free access for public service entities to the Open.NRW portal, for the central publication of data covered by the PSI Directive September 2021 March 2022 Development of training courses and technical tools to improve the quality of data published on the Open.NRW portal September 2021 December 2022 Development of an open standard for election data September 2021 December 2021 Recommendation of the open standard for election data January 2022 August 2023

Action Plan Review

Commitment 8.2 (North Rhine-Westphalia): Improve the quality and quantity of data from public service entities, and of election data