Identifying and Publishing Core Data Assets (UK0071)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: United Kingdom – Third National Action Plan 2016-18
Action Plan Cycle: 2016
Status: Inactive
Institutions
Lead Institution: Cabinet Office (Government Digital Service)
Support Institution(s): All government departments; mySociety, The Open Data Institute
Policy Areas
Access to Information, Legislation & Regulation, Open Data, Public Participation, Records ManagementIRM Review
IRM Report: United Kingdom End-of-Term Report 2016-2018, United Kingdom Mid-Term Report 2016-2018
Starred: No
Early Results: Marginal
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information , Civic Participation , Technology
Implementation i
Description
Objective: To refine our national information infrastructure in order to support publishing and ensure data is good enough for people and organisations in all sectors of the economy and society to use and build on; this includes exploring options for the creation of an open address register.
Status quo: Our data.gov.uk portal has been instrumental in enabling the UK government to open up over 27,000 datasets since its launch in 2010. However, despite considerable recent progress, government data can still be difficult to find and use. Too much government data is still held in organisational silos, which are costly and inefficient to maintain. The data we currently make available openly does not always meet users’ needs in terms of format, quality and timeliness. At the same time, data publishing processes across government do not fit a standard model. They are not always automated or embedded in ‘business as usual’, which can mean there is sometimes duplication and overlap in the data government holds. We want to unlock the power of data to transform public services, drive greater transparency and innovation, and empower civil society. To do this we need to continue to develop our national information infrastructure so that it is as helpful as it can be for all data users.
Ambition: To refine our national information infrastructure in order to support publishing and ensure data is good enough for people and organisations in all sectors of the economy and society to use and build on; this includes exploring options for the creation of an open address register. We need to continue to establish the infrastructure to make finding and accessing good quality data as frictionless as possible. To improve the quality of government data, we need to improve data collection. Within the public sector we need to make more data more easily queried through APIs, while still supporting bulk downloads. This will benefit digital services and improve operational and policy decision-making. Increasingly this will mean those holding data acting as custodians for that data. It will increasingly mean creating open registers, with custodians who understand the importance of their role and the rules under which they should operate. We are committed to reviewing our existing open data infrastructure to ensure it is fit for the purpose of enabling citizens, businesses and the public sector to locate and access high-quality open data assets from across government. So we will engage with data users and refresh our existing open data architecture to ensure it meets user needs going forward. We also need to ensure that core reference data is increasingly open and available without friction. This will include exploring options to create an open and freely available national address register, and ensuring the continued and improved availability of high-quality open data following any potential changes in the ownership of public data-holding bodies. An effective infrastructure requires metadata, standardised approaches for accessing data, appropriate institutional arrangements, skills, formalised obligations and effective co-ordination.
IRM End of Term Status Summary
9. Identifying and publishing core data assets
Commitment Text:We will create a high-quality national information infrastructure, making government data more secure and easier to find, store and access.
Objective:To refine our national information infrastructure in order to support publishing and ensure data is good enough for people and organisations in all sectors of the economy and society to use and build on; this includes exploring options for the creation of an open address register.
Status quo:Our data.gov.uk portal has been instrumental in enabling the UK government to open up over 27,000 datasets since its launch in 2010. However, despite considerable recent progress, government data can still be difficult to find and use.
Too much government data is still held in organisational silos, which are costly and inefficient to maintain. The data we currently make available openly does not always meet users' needs in terms of format, quality and timeliness. At the same time, data publishing processes across government do not fit a standard model. They are not always automated or embedded in ‘business as usual', which can mean there is sometimes duplication and overlap in the data government holds.
We want to unlock the power of data to transform public services, drive greater transparency and innovation, and empower civil society. To do this we need to continue to develop our national information infrastructure so that it is as helpful as it can be for all data users.
Ambition:To refine our national information infrastructure in order to support publishing and ensure data is good enough for people and organisations in all sectors of the economy and society to use and build on; this includes exploring options for the creation of an open address register.
We need to continue to establish the infrastructure to make finding and accessing good quality data as frictionless as possible. To improve the quality of government data, we need to improve data collection. Within the public sector we need to make more data more easily queried through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) while still supporting bulk downloads. This will benefit digital services and improve operational and policy decision-making. Increasingly this will mean those holding data acting as custodians for that data. It will increasingly mean creating open registers, with custodians who understand the importance of their role and the rules under which they should operate.
We are committed to reviewing our existing open data infrastructure to ensure it is fit for the purpose of enabling citizens, businesses and the public sector to locate and access high-quality open data assets from across government. So we will engage with data users and refresh our existing open data architecture to ensure it meets user needs going forward.
We also need to ensure that core reference data is increasingly open and available without friction. This will include exploring options to create an open and freely available national address register, and ensuring the continued and improved availability of high-quality open data following any potential changes in the ownership of public data-holding bodies. An effective infrastructure requires metadata, standardised approaches for accessing data, appropriate institutional arrangements, skills, formalised obligations and effective co-ordination.
Milestones:
1. Create a register of the fields used within canonical registers to ensure consistency of nomenclature
2. Create a linked ecosystem of trusted, resilient and accessible canonical data stores (known as registers), starting with data categories for which the user need is greatest (countries, local authorities, schools and companies) and implementing these during the period of this action plan
3. Through a technical working group, adopt existing and define and agree new common and, where possible, open data standards and approaches based on user needs
4. Explore options for the creation of an open address register underpinned by an open and authoritative identifier to enable anyone to cite or find a property or premises in the UK
5. Develop a better understanding of the data discovery needs of internal and external users of government data, to evolve data.gov.uk and inform the development of data discovery tools and services, with refreshed tools implemented during the period of this action plan
6. Report on the effects on the UK data infrastructure of any actions to change the ownership or contract out the operation of key public registers
Responsible institution: Cabinet Office (Government Digital Service)
Supporting institutions: All government departments, mySociety, The Open Data Institute
Start date: May 2016
End date: June 2018
Commitment Aim:
This commitment built on previous initiatives designed to improve the UK government's data infrastructure. It aimed to strengthen the usability and integrity of data and offer improved tools to search for it while publishing more data as registers. It also promised to create an open address register for UK addresses, which has been long sought after by campaigners and activists.[Note 82: Peter Wells, ‘Open addresses: will the address wars ever end?', https://hackernoon.com/open-addresses-will-the-address-wars-ever-end-f1241bd24283 ]
Status
Midterm: Limited
During the first year of implementation, officials made substantial progress toward a timely completion of the commitment. According to the government, generally progress has been good, though the backroom nature of some of it made it hard for CSOs to judge. The government pointed out that some departments were open to the new ideas and others less so.[Note 83: Interview with Lawrence Hopper and Lois Taylor, Cabinet Office, 26 August 2017.] There was varied digital awareness and understanding of the importance of good data.
There has been less progress on the creation of an open address register, data that is seen as vital for a whole range of local services. The previous government made this commitment as part of a budget announcement in 2016. The issue of open address presents a series of complex legal and technical problems and the government was to explore options rather than make definitive commitment.[Note 84: Peter Wells, ‘Open addresses: will the address wars ever end?', https://hackernoon.com/open-addresses-will-the-address-wars-ever-end-f1241bd24283 ] The emphasis shifted to geo-spatial data more generally because the new May government committed, in its 2017 manifesto, to a new land data body, bringing together land data dispersed across several bodies in the UK.[Note 85: UK Authority, ‘Conservatives Plan for New Land Data Body, http://www.ukauthority.com/news/7177/conservatives-plan-for-new-land-data-body ] Digital activists have long sought an open address register, and this change was likely to be a disappointment,[Note 86: 2016 Government Digital Service, ‘An Open Address Register' (23 March 2016), https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2016/03/23/an-open-address-register/, and ODI crowdsourced data list, Open Data Institute, ‘Free and Open Address List Launches Today', https://theodi.org/news/free-and-open-address-list-launches-today-open-addresses-uk-calls-for-individuals-and-organisations-to-get-involved; Interview with Lawrence Hopper and Lois Taylor, Cabinet Office, 26 August 2017.] especially because some bodies have already experimented with a crowdsourced version.[Note 87: Peter Wells, ‘Open addresses: will the address wars ever end?', https://hackernoon.com/open-addresses-will-the-address-wars-ever-end-f1241bd24283, and ‘Budget 2016: The UK must take every opportunity to strengthen data infrastructure', https://theodi.org/news/budget-2016-the-uk-must-take-every-opportunity-to-strengthen-data-infrastructure ] Data.gov.uk was on track in terms of improving users' ability to search the government data portal. An experimental beta site named FIND was developed in August 2017, which was due to be made public soon after testing.[Note 88: Interview with Lawrence Hopper and Lois Taylor, Cabinet Office, 26 August 2017.]
End of Term: Substantial
By the end of the cycle, there was further progress in several areas. 42 registers were listed as being ‘ready to use' i.e. live (up from 17 in the last update) with 36 more in progress (down from 45).[Note 89: Interview with Katie Holder and Thom Townsend, DCMS, 8 August 2018. ]
The open address data aspect of the commitment changed substantially during the two years. In June 2018 (end of cycle) the Cabinet Office announced the release of OS MasterMap data in conjunction with Ordnance Survey, a set that includes important building blocks such as property boundaries. An accompanying government press claimed this would boost the economy by £130m a year and explained it would be carried out by the new Geospatial Commission.[Note 90: UK Government (2018), https://www.gov.uk/government/news/unlocking-of-governments-mapping-and-location-data-to-boost-economy-by-130m-a-year; and Open Data Institute (2018) and on the New Geospatial commission itself, https://theodi.org/article/what-will-the-uks-geospatial-commission-look-like/ ]
The Open Data Institute argued that ‘this is significant, not only for us geospatial data fans but for the UK economy and its citizens'. It explained that Master Map data will be open for all to share and will contain key data such as ‘property boundaries' as well as street-level data, ‘Topographic Identifiers (TOIDs)', that can be linked to other datasets and used as building blocks for data on buildings, roads or other landmarks.[Note 91: Open Data Institute (2018), https://theodi.org/article/ordnance-survey-and-other-data-stewards-must-innovate-to-keep-up-with-the-private-sector/ ]
Did It Open Government?
Access to Information: Marginal
Civic Participation: Did not change
The one clear area of greater access to information and technology and innovation is registers. As Computerworld outlined in August 2018, registers represented one clear positive of the government's openness programme. It provides ‘a reliable source of up-to-date government data that is quick and easy to source' across topics that ‘range from allergens referenced in Food Standards Agency food safety alerts to lists of Jobcentre offices'. It has also been used to innovate: so far it has been the basis for a series of innovations, including being ‘used to create the Cabinet Office's GOV.UK Pay system and the Parliamentary Digital Service's E-petitions service'.[Note 92: Computer World (2018), What is the UK government's open data strategy?, 7 September 2018, https://www.computerworlduk.com/data/how-uk-government-uses-open-data-3683332/
] It is too early to tell the effects of the other large-scale innovation on Master Map, such as on map data. However, so far, there is no evidence the commitment has encouraged greater participation.
Carried Forward?
This commitment will continue outside of the action plan into 2019 and beyond. The IRM midterm report recommended that the government continue to explore and innovate with access and obtain external scrutiny of their actions. This appears to be, at least in part, the role of the new Geospatial Commission.
Commitments
-
Grants Data
UK0090, 2019, Access to Information
-
Digital Charter
UK0091, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Policy Making
UK0092, 2019, Public Participation
-
Open Contracting Data
UK0093, 2019, Access to Information
-
Natural Resource Transparency
UK0094, 2019, Access to Information
-
Innovation in Democracy Programme
UK0095, 2019, Public Participation
-
Sustainable Open Government
UK0096, 2019, Capacity Building
-
Local Transparency
UK0097, 2019, Access to Information
-
Beneficial Ownership – UK
UK0063, 2016, Anti-Corruption
-
Natural Resource Transparency
UK0064, 2016, Access to Information
-
Anti-Corruption Strategy
UK0065, 2016, Anti-Corruption
-
Anti-Corruption Innovation Hub
UK0066, 2016, Anti-Corruption
-
Open Contracting
UK0067, 2016, Access to Information
-
Grants Data
UK0068, 2016, Access to Information
-
Elections Data
UK0069, 2016, Access to Information
-
Revising Freedom of Information Act Code of Practice
UK0070, 2016, Access to Information
-
Identifying and Publishing Core Data Assets
UK0071, 2016, Access to Information
-
Involving Data Users in Shaping the Future of Open Data
UK0072, 2016, Access to Information
-
Better Use of Data Assets
UK0073, 2016, Access to Information
-
GOV.UK
UK0074, 2016, Access to Information
-
Ongoing Collaborative Approach to Open Government Reform
UK0075, 2016, E-Government
-
Open Government at All Levels
UK0076, 2016, Public Participation
-
Open Policy-Making and Public Engagement
UK0077, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Public Sector Innovation
UK0078, 2016, Access to Information
-
OCDS Implementation
UK0079, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open-Up Government
UK0080, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open Data Plan
UK0081, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open Data Service
UK0082, 2016, Access to Information
-
Statswales
UK0083, 2016, Access to Information
-
Data Research Centre Wales
UK0084, 2016, E-Government
-
Government Social Research Publication Protocol
UK0085, 2016, E-Government
-
Gov.Wales
UK0086, 2016, E-Government
-
Code of Practice in Supply Chains
UK0087, 2016, Labor
-
National Indicators for Wales
UK0088, 2016, Fiscal Openness
-
Well-Being Duty
UK0089, 2016, Anti-Corruption
-
National Information Infrastructure
UK0042, 2013,
-
NHS England Website and Network
UK0043, 2013, Health
-
Revised Local Authories Data Transparency Code
UK0044, 2013, Capacity Building
-
Transparent Social Investment Market
UK0045, 2013, Access to Information
-
Manage and Capture Digital Records
UK0046, 2013, Capacity Building
-
Cross-Government Anti-Corruption Plan
UK0047, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Company Beneficial Ownership Information
UK0048, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Access to Police Records
UK0049, 2013, Justice
-
Transparency in Construction
UK0050, 2013, Infrastructure & Transport
-
Legislative Openness
UK0051, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Whistleblowing
UK0052, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Open Contracting
UK0053, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Open Contracting Scotland
UK0054, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
International Aid Transparency
UK0055, 2013, Access to Information
-
Health Care Data
UK0056, 2013, Access to Information
-
Open Policy Making
UK0057, 2013, E-Government
-
Sciencewise
UK0058, 2013, E-Government
-
Publication of Draft Legislation
UK0059, 2013, Open Parliaments
-
OpenDataCommunities Programme
UK0060, 2013, Access to Information
-
PSI Re-Use Directive
UK0061, 2013, Access to Information
-
Extractive Transparency
UK0062, 2013, Access to Information
-
Ensuring a Clear Process to Support Reduction in Collection of ‘Unnecessary Data’
UK0024, 2011, E-Government
-
Developing Data.Gov.Uk and Identifying Other Digital Channels to Support Users
UK0025, 2011,
-
Evidence and Databases Behind Policy Statements
UK0026, 2011, E-Government
-
Data Underlying Surveys
UK0027, 2011, E-Government
-
Examining Ways for Improving the Use of Existing Published Data
UK0028, 2011, E-Government
-
Stimulate the Market for Innovative Use of Open Data
UK0029, 2011, Access to Information
-
Spend up to 5% of Budget Support on Accountability
UK0030, 2011, E-Government
-
Include the OGP Eligibility Criteria to Determine Readiness for UK Budget Support
UK0031, 2011, Aid
-
Publish Aid Information from All ODA Government Departments
UK0032, 2011, Aid
-
Use a Single Domain for Government Services
UK0033, 2011, E-Government
-
Mandate ‘Channel Shift’
UK0034, 2011, E-Government
-
Go Online for All Consultations
UK0035, 2011, E-Government
-
Develop Practical Guidelines on Departmental Access to Internet and Social Media
UK0036, 2011, Civic Space
-
Open Data and Application Interfaces in Ways That Encourage Businesses
UK0037, 2011, Access to Information
-
Create Cross-Government Standards on APIs
UK0038, 2011, Public Participation
-
Establish Standardised Formats for User-Satisfaction Data
UK0039, 2011, Public Participation
-
Provide Government Documents in Open Standard Format
UK0040, 2011, Access to Information
-
Implement Crowd-Sourcing and Engagement Processes
UK0041, 2011, Public Participation
-
New Power to Secure Release of Valuable Datasets
UK0001, 2011,
-
New, Higher Cost Cap for FOI
UK0002, 2011, Access to Information
-
Meaningful Disincentives
UK0003, 2011,
-
Maximum Time Limits
UK0004, 2011, Access to Information
-
Altered Procurement Rules
UK0005, 2011,
-
Mandating Phased Introduction of ‘Public by Default’
UK0006, 2011, E-Government
-
Formalising Public Data Principles
UK0007, 2011,
-
Having in Place an Open Data Compliance Monitoring Process
UK0008, 2011,
-
Making Clear the Minimum Citizens Can Expect on Publication and Quality of Data
UK0009, 2011,
-
Ensuring a Line of Continuous Improvement for Public Service Providers
UK0010, 2011, Access to Information
-
Encourage Continuous Improvement
UK0011, 2011,
-
Setting Out How Citizens Can Challenge Where There Is Failure in the Process
UK0012, 2011, Public Participation
-
Establishing an Obligation to Consider and Act on User Feedback
UK0013, 2011, Public Participation
-
Making Clear That Licenses Must Cover Free, Commercial Re-Use
UK0014, 2011,
-
Merge Information Asset Registers…Into a Single Data Inventory
UK0015, 2011,
-
Set Consistent Expectations of the Appropriate Quality of Meta-Data
UK0016, 2011, Records Management
-
For Data Co-Ordinated Across Government, Set Definitions
UK0017, 2011, E-Government
-
Introducing Corporate Responsibility at Transparency Board Level
UK0018, 2011,
-
Strengthening and Broadening the Public Sector Transparency Board
UK0019, 2011, Anti-Corruption
-
Bringing the Sector Transparency Board Model to Other Parts of Public Sector
UK0020, 2011, Anti-Corruption
-
Reviewing the Existing Governance and Regulatory Model
UK0021, 2011,
-
Establishing a Framework for Public Service Providers Data Inventories
UK0022, 2011, Records Management
-
Developing a Clear Methodology to Support Intelligent Inventories
UK0023, 2011,