Make Open Data Accessible (SE0018)

As a first step and as a way for the public sector to lead the way, government bodies should be appointed to make such data that is considered to have high potential in terms of development, innovation, collaboration and commercial exploitation as accessible as possible. Collaboration with civil society forms part of this commitment, including representatives from civil society joining DIGG’s reference group to conduct a needs analysis and to survey impacts at opendata.se. This work will be launched with three workshops in late summer 2019.

The Government has tasked DIGG with particularly promoting data domains with major potential (I2019/01416/DF, I2019/01020/DF). Within this remit, the agency is initially to prioritise data in the following areas: traffic, labour market, health, geodata and open research data. The work is to be carried out in dialogue and consultation with a range of agencies and other actors affected, including sectoral agencies responsible for these areas and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR). DIGG must also take into account the Swedish Research Council’s work on open research data and Vinnova’s work on open innovation. As well as increasing the capacity of the public sector to make open data accessible, DIGG is also to develop support and guidelines particularly geared towards the needs of those making further use of the data.
• Responsible actor: Agency for Digital Government (DIGG).
• Report to be submitted by: January 31st, 2021.
• Contributes towards OGP principles: Transparency, Technology and Innovation.

2. Make open data that can best benefit society accessible

Main Objective

"As a first step and as a way for the public sector to lead the way, government bodies should be appointed to make such data that is considered to have high potential in terms of development, innovation, collaboration and commercial exploitation as accessible as possible. Collaboration with civil society forms part of this commitment, including representatives from civil society joining DIGG's reference group to conduct a needs analysis and to survey impacts at opendata.se. This work will be launched with three workshops in late summer 2019.

The Government has tasked DIGG with particularly promoting data domains with major potential (I2019/01416/DF, I2019/01020/DF). Within this remit, the agency is initially to prioritise data in the following areas: traffic, labour market, health, geodata and open research data. The work is to be carried out in dialogue and consultation with a range of agencies and other actors affected, including sectoral agencies responsible for these areas and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR). DIGG must also take into account the Swedish Research Council's work on open research data and Vinnova's work on open innovation. As well as increasing the capacity of the public sector to make open data accessible, DIGG is also to develop support and guidelines particularly geared towards the needs of those making further use of the data."

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Sweden's 2019-2021 action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Sweden_Action-Plan_2019-2021_EN.pdf

Commitment Analysis

This commitment aims to identify and make more accessible certain priority datasets with "high potential in terms of development, innovation, collaboration and commercial exploitation". According to the commitment, priority data will be identified for the following categories: traffic, labour market, health, geodata, and open research data.

The Agency for Digital Government (DIGG) will lead three workshops with primary data users to inform a needs assessment on the availability and usability of data on Sweden's national open data portal opendata.se. DIGG will also develop guidelines for the public sector on best practices for sharing high-quality open data. According to a DIGG representative, DIGG will update the portal in accordance with the findings of the users' needs assessment. In addition, DIGG will also develop a national application programming interface (API) catalogue to improve the searchability of data on the portal. Moreover, DIGG aims to standardise the frameworks and processes of publishing data in machine-readable formats on the national data portal. Finally, to facilitate communication in digital practices, DIGG will establish a forum for data users and create a section on the portal to publish articles of good examples of re-use in society. ^[15]

The opening of prioritised datasets makes the commitment relevant to the OGP value of access to information. Furthermore, the planned workshops with civil society stakeholders to assist in data prioritisation makes the commitment relevant to civic participation. The workshops and guidelines are verifiable, though the commitment could have benefited from specific milestones and activities.

According to a DIGG representative, the specific categories of data for this commitment (health, geodata, etc.) have high potential to encourage data-driven innovation and improve Sweden's open data maturity. ^[16] DIGG will work with responsible agencies who produce data in these categories to improve the standardisation, quality, and access to the data. The point of contact to OGP at the Ministry of Infrastructure also informed the IRM that the Swedish Cadastral and Land Registration Agency (Lantmäteriet) and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) will produce geodata and transport data for this commitment, respectively. ^[17]

The Swedish Transport Administration publishes its own open data regarding infrastructure and events on state-owned roads and the railway network. However, there is currently no common database for all transport data, even though the dataportal.se has data sources in several different areas, including transport. [18] Furthermore, according to a representative of the Swedish Transport Administration, transport data is in great demand in Sweden with respect to shorter travel times and smarter choices for modes of transport. [19] Mobility is also a priority area in the EU's open data strategy. [20] The Lantmäteriet currently has several e-services for the public to access maps and aerial photos. The data is digitalised according to national and international standards to facilitate reuse. However, the Lantmäteriet currently must charge fees for accessing its geodata. [21]

According to recent analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on digital governance in Sweden, the relevance of the potential benefits of open data for social value is not yet fully acknowledged in Sweden. ^[22] Therefore, strengthening the publishing practices around certain data categories of high social value could help improve the opendata.se portal as well as Sweden's overall open data maturity. Furthermore, the guidelines to be developed by DIGG could help standardise open data practices across the public sector, particularly around searchability, format, and re-usability. Ultimately, the potential impact of the commitment will depend on the amount of high-value data that is made available and the extent of the improvements to the opendata.se portal. As written in the action plan, the commitment could lead to minor but important improvements in open data in Sweden.

Commitment 2. Make open data that can best benefit society accessible

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential impact: Minor

● Completion: Complete

● Did it open government? Marginal

Commitment 2: Make open data that can best benefit society available

Agency for Digital Government

Context and Objectives

Sweden scores average in international open data rankings. Sweden stood second-to-last in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) OurIndex 2019 ranking. [1] The OECD has also pointed out that Sweden tends to prefer isolated projects rather than a countrywide consistent strategy. [2]

As described in the original commitment, the Agency for Digital Government (DIGG) held workshops in 2019 with nongovernment stakeholders about the new open data portal. [3] According to civil society organisations, these discussions had limitations because the government had already set out the five priority thematic areas to be included in the portal: [4] The main achievement under this commitment was the launch in 2020 of a new centralised data portal (http://www.dataportal.se), which replaced a previous website that has now been shut down (oppnadata.se).

The five topic areas were traffic, labour market, health, geodata, and open research. Under ‘Traffic’, the ‘transport’ section in the data portal hosts more than a hundred datasets, published mostly by local authorities. Transport is a rare example of a reuse of data mentioned in the (non-tech) media. [5] There are currently around 1,000 published datasets related to the labour market, in the ‘Population and society’ category. There is a dedicated section in the data portal related to health. The provision of geodata has substantially improved, in line with the entry into force of the EU directive on open data in the public sector in July 2019. [6] However, business organisations continue to advocate for swift implementation in full of the directive. [7] The Swedish Research Council has started a plan towards open research, to be achieved in 2026. [8]

These priorities, however, are disconnected from international assessments of gaps in open data in Sweden, which notably highlight deficiencies in open data related to land ownership, government spending, and public procurement. [9]

Did It Open Government? Marginal

The number of datasets available on the new portal more than tripled between March 2020 and December 2021, when it reached 7,700 datasets. [10] The available formats usually include JSON or XML. In a case of reuse, the industry association Transportföretagen used the Transport Administration’s open data (on cracking, rutting depth, and the expected time between two maintenance operations) to publicly reveal that almost 13% of the Swedish road network is in very poor condition. [11] This shows how the information on the new data portal has led to notable steps forward in advancing open data and its reuse in Sweden.

Despite this progress, Sweden remains the lowest-rated country in the last Capgemini Research Institute assessment, with only 19% of public sector organisations having deployed or currently deploying data ecosystems. [12] In the Global Data Barometer, an international civil society initiative to assess the quality of open data, Sweden is among the lowest-ranked EU countries in the 2022 assessment. [13] A civil society representative also commented [14] that open data is seen as an economic and growth issue, so the government prioritises data with economic potential, such as transportation and mobility datasets. From this civil society perspective, the government also needs to prioritise political integrity data and public procurement data.

Looking Ahead

The government will need to ensure it continues to allocate resources to maintain the data portal beyond the life of this action plan cycle. As promised in the commitment, DIGG could organise regular and structured dialogue with current and potential users of open data to co-construct priorities in opening up data. Participants should have a clear understanding of how their input is used (or not). Promotional events or workshops could also encourage the reuse of data released via the portal. Furthermore, the government, DIGG, and local authorities could use Freedom of Information requests to identify people’s data needs.

The release of procurement data and the construction of a centralised public open data platform for procurement remains a priority for civil society that government could look to address. In relation to this, the national procurement authority had started to publish a statistical tab on its website, [15] which could serve as a starting point for future commitments in Sweden’s next action plan. While data is currently not downloadable, the national procurement authority could look at publishing information as open data.