Identifying and Publishing Core Data Assets (UK0071)

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.

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.