Visiting Warwickshire County Council was a great way for us to kick off with our plans for open data. We started off as most Councils did with data about spends over £500 and have since been adding more datasets to the new 'open data' section of our website. But we wanted to know how to go further, how to use open data to benefit us and our customers.
So in February a few of us jumped in a car and drove down to meet a team of very talented people from Warwickshire County Council about the great work they have been doing with Open Data. As we chatted through the many benefits, potential issues and hidden challenges I took a few notes, which I have summarised below.
Show your working
When Warwickshire County Council had to release news about some of their libraries closures, accompanying the press release was data about library attendance, running costs and other key information. Showing their working meant that the public and press got to see how the decisions were made.
Scratch your own itch
If you are going to the trouble of getting data out of systems, cleansing it to make it usable and publishing it, why not start with data you can use internally? This is a great way to sell open data to internal stakeholders, by using it to solve your own problems and showing success by doing.
Just publish it
If the data is available and passes all the information governance checks then publish it. It will help drive interest and will be useful to somebody.
Pre-empt FOI requests
If the data has been requested through a freedom of information request then publish it for everyone on the website as well. It will save you and your customer's time by reducing the number of FOIs necessary.
Employ an evangelist
Make a named person responsible for open data, this will give everyone in the organisation a contact point. This person should be responsible for selling and promoting open data to internal staff and customers, as well as setting policy in-line with information governance and data quality. If necessary, use an external person such as someone who has already implemented open data elsewhere to lay down the foundations before handing over to your internal staff.