Open Data Service (UK0082)

Commitment Text: develop an Open Data Service for Wales with a focus on helping improve
public services.
Objective: to increase the openness and amount of data about Wales that is published by
Welsh Government and other public sector bodies.
Status quo: only a subset of data about Wales held by Welsh Government and other public
sector partners is currently published.
Ambition: developing an Open Data Service for Wales will increase the accessibility and the
amount of data published by Welsh Government and other public sector bodies in Wales.
Furthermore making more data openly available will hopefully help improve public services in Wales.
Milestones:
1. StatsWales data published in machine readable format
2. StatsWales training material on improvements prepared and delivered
3. Lle developed to allow users to build their own maps
4. Open data catalogue produced

2. Open data service (Wales)

Commitment Text:develop an Open Data Service for Wales with a focus on helping improve public services.

Objective:to increase the openness and amount of data about Wales that is published by Welsh Government and other public sector bodies.

Status quo:only a subset of data about Wales held by Welsh Government and other public sector partners is currently published.

Ambition:developing an Open Data Service for Wales will increase the accessibility and the amount of data published by Welsh Government and other public sector bodies in Wales. Furthermore making more data openly available will hopefully help improve public services in Wales.

Milestones:

1. StatsWales data published in machine readable format

2. StatsWales training material on improvements prepared and delivered

3. Lle developed to allow users to build their own maps

4. Open data catalogue produced

Responsible institution: Welsh Government

Supporting institutions: Welsh Government other government departments, StatsWales site team

Start date: March 2016

End date: March 2017

Commitment Aim:

As mentioned in Commitment 1, the Welsh government currently publishes some data via its two portals, Lle and StatsWales.^{[Note 185: Lle, Welsh Government, ‘Lle: A Geo-Portal for Wales', http://lle.gov.wales/home, and Statistics Wales ‘Statistics Wales Portal', https://statswales.gov.wales/Help/Index]} This commitment aimed to develop an Open Data Service for Wales to improve on the current amount and quality of data available.

As the commitment text points out, only a subset of data about Wales is currently published. The commitment will ensure not only that more data is published but also that the government's openness rating improves, training materials are made available and there is interactive content is published.^{[Note 186: The starred openness rating system, 5stardata.info ‘5 Star Data', http://5stardata.info/en/ ]}

The commitment would further increase the openness of the Welsh government, while also making data publication more systematic and interactive. If fully implemented, the commitment would improve the quality of existing data, but would address neither the issue of multiple data portals, nor the issue of determining which data subsets should be required for publication in order to bridge the current gap where only a few subsets are published.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

Three of the four milestones were in progress after the first year. An examination of the catalogue showed StatsWales data being published in machine-readable format across a wide range of areas. Statistics Wales also had a series of training materials on how to use and analyse the data on the site (both the data itself and the meta-data) with more planned.^{[Note 187: Interview with Rhiannon Caunt, Welsh Government, 6 September 2017. Stats Wales ‘Help', https://statswales.gov.wales/Help/Index, and https://statswales.gov.wales/Help/Index]}

For milestone 3, on the geo-spatial Lle website, a new beta development now allows users of the data to build their own maps.^{[Note 188: Lle, ‘Lidar Composite Dataset', http://lle.gov.wales/Catalogue/Item/LidarCompositeDataset/?lang=en ]} Only milestone 4 is behind schedule, as the open catalogue has been delayed over the development of a prototype from StatsWales, due to lack of resources.^{[Note 189: Interview with Rhiannon Caunt, Welsh Government, 6 September 2017.]}

End of Term: Substantial

Most parts of the commitment were completed according to the December 2017 update. The commitment was, in some senses, a subset of the Open Data plan in commitment 1 and so shared a number of the outcomes. By the final update of 2018 the data was made machine readable, guidance material had been produced and a beta version of the map creator for the Lle site was up and running.^{[Note 190: Welsh Government (2018), Third UK Open Government, national action plan 2016-2018, Welsh Government End of Term Self-Assessment Report, October 2018, https://www.opengovernment.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Office-of-the-Chief-Digital-Officer-NAP-3-Open Government-National-Action-Plan-2016-2018-Final-Assessment.pdf; Map creator in beta, http://lle.gov.wales/map]} Another 60 datasets were added by the end of the commitment, making a total of 260 by 2018. Only the production of an open data catalogue was categorised as ‘behind schedule' because of contractual delays. These problems were due to accreditation, but resources had been obtained by the final update.^{[Note 191: Welsh Government (2017), National Action Plan Welsh Government Mid-Term Self-Assessment Report.]}

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

The commitment aimed to increase both the amount and accessibility of information. The change so far has increased access to information in a minor way, with Lle increasing the number of datasets from around 200 in 2016 to 260 in 2018 and making all data machine readable. The data included regular release of social indicators, health and a range of socio-cultural data, all in machine-readable form. Innovations such as the map creator also made the data accessible in new ways.

Carried Forward?

This commitment was not carried forward.