Open Budget Data in Berlin (DE0055)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? In the interests of the transparency and accessibility to scrutiny of financial data and govern- ment activities, Berlin’s budget data from 2010 to the present is published in a structured machine-readable form on the Berlin open data portal. In 2023, a new open data strategy for Land Berlin was adopted in the Berlin Senate. Linked open data is one of the core elements of the new open data strategy, under which the senate and district authorities are to make their data available in five-star quality – that is to say, as linked open data – on the Berlin open data portal in future. This measure responds to the desire for data to be connected, complete and of better quality. Having structured data that can be readily linked, e.g. within administration, is also important for the sake of future harmonised data management. Open data sets need to be arranged in such a way as to be compatible, well-described and clearly identifiable. Only then can links be generated automatically and data “speak” to each other – as linked open data. To make Berlin’s budget data more usable and informative, the data set needs to be raised to this highest level of open data quality.

What is the commitment? This project will create the infrastructure necessary for publishing the open data set of Berlin’s biennial budget on the Berlin open data portal as linked open data for the first time. Procedural steps and outcomes will be documented and made available in order to ad- vance the implementation of additional sets of linked open data – including those of other divisions and authorities and therefore independently of any sector-specific procedure. In publishing Berlin’s budget data as linked open data, the foundations for future linkages between authorities and serving in the vanguard of progress on open data are being laid: in collaboration with Land Schleswig-Holstein, arrangements are being made for experience to be shared, links to be put in place and the project to be scaled up.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem? Publishing the budget data as linked data will lay the groundwork for linked government data from which other public authorities will benefit in future. The quality of the data set – its informativeness and usability – will be vastly enhanced, making this a project with great potential reach. The project will also encourage network-strengthening activities between partners within and outside the Land. With the collaboration of the State Chancellery of Land Schleswig-Holstein, the necessary semantics for linked open budget data will be worked out so that the data sets can speak to one another.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? Linking (budget) data sets is intended to open up new insights for stakeholders and raise the added value of the data and the transparency of decision-making for both internal and external observers. Collaboration with partners within administration and the Berlin data community will strengthen participation.

Additional information: Visualisation of Berlin budget data (in German): haushaltsdaten.odis-berlin.de

Milestone activity with a verifiable deliverable | Start date - Implementation by

BarCamp run by the Open Knowledge Foundation (networking in pursuit of standardised ontology) | 4th quarter of 2023 - 4th quarter of 2023

Agreement of semantics with State Chancellery of Land Schleswig-Holstein | 1st quarter of 2024 - 3rd quarter of 2024

Programming of data set in a linked data format | 2nd quarter of 2024 - 4th quarter of 2024

Action Plan Review

Commitment 12. Berlin budget data as linked open data

Commitments 12–14: Linked Open Data

Berlin Senate Department for Finance (Commitment 12) and State Chancellery of Land Schleswig-Holstein (Commitments 13 and 14)

For a complete description of the commitments included in this cluster, see Commitments 12, 13, and 14 in Germany’s 2023–2025 national action plan: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Germany_Action-Plan_2023-2025_June_EN.pdf.

Context and objectives

Linked open data (LOD) forms the foundation of effective digital government and enables a vast array of new use cases. [77] LOD involves assigning stable Uniform Resource Identifiers to the data and connecting datasets. LOD enables analyses across different datasets, therefore reducing the burden of administrations, academics, and civil society in compiling composite datasets. Germany lags in LOD and open data generally. [78] Open data practices diverge significantly across municipalities. Some larger cities proactively share their data and have created open data portals, but most cities do not. [79] The legal framework surrounding open data also differs between the Länder, but nowhere is disclosure of open data a legal requirement. The latest progress report on open data of the Federal Government (2019) highlights several shortcomings of the open data framework: many administrations are not sharing more data, open data is not integrated early on in changes of technical or organizational procedures, and most administrations not being aware of use cases. [80] Open data has been a part of Germany's previous OGP action plans, but civil society has criticized the lack of an overarching strategy.

The three commitments of this cluster will advance LOD within Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin. Schleswig-Holstein will work towards sharing all their data as LOD (Commitment 14) and develop a visualization tool for budget data in cooperation with Berlin (Commitment 13). To that end, both Länder will jointly develop the semantics to share their budget data as LOD. This means developing a standardized terminology to describe the data to enable linkage between datasets. Berlin will share their budget data as LOD and document its experience of linking budget data and experience sharing with Schleswig-Holstein (Commitment 12). This could be seen as a first step towards a wider adoption of LOD, which is also one of the goals of Berlin’s open data strategy passed in 2023. [81] Both Länder worked with civil society to develop the activities under their respective commitments before their inclusion in the action plan. [82] Berlin has also worked with civil society in developing their recent data strategy. [83] Schleswig-Holstein hosted data dialogues (“Datendialoge”) to identify the priorities of academia, civil society, and businesses in developing their approach to open data. In both cases, stakeholders identified LOD as a priority. Cooperation between Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin emerged out of personal contact between the two implementing officers, established by a member of civil society.

Potential for results: Substantial

LOD can enable new standards of digital government in Germany and set the foundations for cooperation between civil society and public administration. Effective open government in Germany requires cooperation at the subnational level to create workable solutions for the use of data at scale. The commitments were clustered, as they constitute clear steps in the direction of wider LOD use and provide a leading example of cross-Länder cooperation. Taken as a whole, this cluster has substantial potential for results. Schleswig-Holstein sets an ambitious target of publishing all their data sets as LOD. This commitment will lead to a sustained increase in the accessibility and reusability of open data, backed by the additional goals of coordinating their release of budget data with Berlin and ensuring usability through a data visualization tool. The benefits of LOD on a larger scale hinge on the adoption of common terminologies to enable linking data sets. The cooperation between Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin could serve as an example for Länder.

Good data management enables administrations to work efficiently in an evidence-based manner. [84] At the same time, sharing open government data in usable formats makes it easier for citizens to understand administrative practices and hold governments accountable. As the commitments for Schleswig-Holstein promise to work towards linking all their data sets, there are significant gains expected in digital government. The expected cooperation with municipalities could also be important. While cooperation will be voluntary, Schleswig-Holstein provides the technical infrastructure (“Kommunales Informationssystem”) which enables local administrations to conduct new analyses on their data and provide use cases. This is important because many administrations are unaware of use cases for their data outside the administration [85] and open data is often perceived as an additional burden.

For Berlin, the commitment mainly serves as a pilot for LOD. The potential of this commitment hinges on its integration into a wider strategy towards LOD. Budget data as LOD, especially in a form interoperable with Schleswig-Holstein’s data, increases the accessibility and reusability of open data within one important area. More substantial improvements in open data in Berlin will require learning from this case and expanding it to other areas. The commitment text promises that the experience will be documented and serve as examples for a future expansion of LOD. The milestones of this commitment however do not specify the process or goals of this expansion, limiting the potential for results of this commitment.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

The main challenges for open data are lack of knowledge and resources, fragmented approaches between the Länder and lack of political rewards for projects outside of public attention like the effective digitalization of administrative practice. To be effective, Länder need to cooperate and commit to long-term strategic plans and build competences. The commitments of this cluster tackle several of these challenges and have a clear potential to act as role models for future improvements in LOD in Germany. In future OGP action plans, other Länder could include more commitments for ambitious open data reforms like the proposals by Schleswig-Holstein. The IRM recommends the following steps: