Michael Rose | Head of Data Engagement

Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural

environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a

thriving rural economy.

Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat,

and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.

Defra is a ministerial department, supported by 33 agencies and public bodies.

I have worked at Environment Agency since 1998, I have had a number of roles most recently

the Commercial Licensing Manager transitioning to become the Open Data Manager. I

consider my roles have not all just been about data rather they have been about users (internal

and external).

I am going to talk about the 8000 sets of data commitment, how we are planning to meet it,

and then delve into why we are doing it at all.

At the end of this session hopefully you will see that 8000 is just a number, the aim is much

much bigger…..

Picture © Environment Agency So 8000 datasets - How are we doing that then? For data that has never been published it couldn’t be easier.... • Pledges, focus on 8 ALBs plus core Defra Group. • Empowering organisations to release. • Data ‘Dump’ then continuous improvement based on feedback. • Light touch risk assessment • Not just about headline datasets release also about transparency on decisions. For data that has previously been commercially sold it is slightly more difficult, but not impossible... FOR EXAMPLE This is the big news data released by Defra so far is LIDAR – which is basically really detailed height information captured from planes that is used for flood modelling by the Environment Agency I had to get approval from the Executive Directors team in the Environment Agency to give up the income from this data. Releasing this data as open data has removed a barrier to using it for all sorts of things. You may have seen in the press items around LIDAR and vineyards and LIDAR and the discovery of roman roads. So we are aiming to shift data that is not currently open to open like LIDAR and sift through the data that we have never published and release loads of that.

Picture Credit https://plus.google.com/photos/+RichWareham/albums/5927580808960451249

Lidar has also been used in Minecraft to help develop the real world in the virtual world.

Releasing more data and the ability of ‘everyone’ to use that data is that people may do really

whizzy and cool and USEFUL things with data that we would never have thought of and

certainly would not have been able to do.

So we can see that there are niches of data users that are small and esoteric there is no way

that we, government, could service them all and nor should we.

We need to accept we are not application developers, we shouldn’t try to get into gaming and

by people getting used to our data in this way, they will know it is there in the future.

The 8000 sets of data are about us providing the materials for others to do things with it.

Picture Credit (c) Mauricio Lima https://www.flickr.com/photos/minhocos/13950908853

Is this the future of farming? Sorry, I had to make my presentation title work.

We don’t know what the future uses of our data looks like?

We need to know from you what of the Defra 8000 sets of data will help you.

We want you to tell us whether we are releasing the data that will help you the most.

You are the people who will know that. You need to look at what we are publishing, see what

services and analysis develops and tell us what you want.

Our data becomes a component of a “big data” approach – which is a term I am not in love

with – for me this means that by providing our data others can combine it and utilise it in a

myriad of other ways that we will not have thought of and then we can re-ingest it.

Picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mackro/5210387723

But the data release was always introduced as the accelerator... But the accelerator of what?

The Secretary of State launched the Open Environment planning exercise in October last year

– this was the first time Defra had invited stakeholders in to discuss the problems we may face

over that period in an open and frank manner. The 8000 sets of data is the start of us being

more porous as an organisation.

Well we all work on our own islands. We see the world from our perspective and we like to

draw clear boundaries around it.

In part this is because of history – we have developed an approach to the world which breaks it

up into 20th century sized manageable chunks.

The rules we have, the legislation we have to follow, the systems we have developed were in

the main put in place before the internet transformed the world.

Some of the databases in Defra have a 30 year history, and I don’t mean the data I mean the

system that it is contained within. A lot of systems were developed in an age where you

needed to have a room full of computer to do much with the data.

But the world of data and technology has changed beyond all recognition in the last 5 years

and honestly I think we have struggled to keep up.

We now need to transform our approach to many things in this area. And for me that means

stopping, stepping back, looking at what we are doing and working out if it is the best way.

We all know that whilst we may have created our artificial borders, the world around us doesn’t

work like that.

Look at this image, what do you see. I suspect depending on your background, your

experience and your views you will see it differently to me.

To illustrate, I have worked in the Environment Agency for a long time.

Looking at this view, I look at it in an Environment Agency way – there is a river, there is a

flood plain, there is a catchment with very little to slow the water falling on it from getting from

top to bottom.

BUT I am now beginning to look at it from a Defra perspective (this will take time!) is there is

also a SSSI? there is there managed woodland, are payments being made to farmers for the

land, are there animal health issues here we can not see, ash tree dieback etc.

The environment we consider is not a series of islands and the release of 8000 sets of data

from across Defra Group is designed to shock the systems we have developed to reconsider

the approaches we have ‘always’ taken and consider the whole system approach.

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We literally live on an island, and it is all to easy to consider the edge of our island as the edge

of our concern.

However that is not the way the world works. Defra Group is England, and sometimes GB,

whilst it was easier to consider just our patch in the past it is increasingly clear that the

environment doesn’t end at the edges of our country.

It is straight forward to see that the marine system is shared, it is obvious that the atmosphere

is shared we see weather that has effected the east coast of the US a few days afterwards.

The same is true for what we do on the ground, we have to consider the impact of what we are

doing in the context of the whole system.

We need to be thinking about how we work across borders in an increasingly complex way.

http://www.dailyinfographic.com/mobile-phone-size-evolution

For a moment think about what has happened over the last 26 years the technology we have

around us has changed incredibly.

I am a member of the last generation who will know what it feels like to be truly out of contact.

I remember the queue for the payphone at university, imagine telling your children they have to

queue to make a phone call. They would probably ask you what is a phone call!

Let alone the consequences of having facebook when I was ‘discovering’ myself and beer...

The computing power you have in your hand is unbelievable, you are creating masses and

masses of data, you use and demand to use data to make decisions that 10 years ago would

have just been ‘gut’.

It was only 2007 that the iPhone was launched. Think about that for a moment, before that if

you wanted to send a text message, to get the letter “s” you had to press a button 3 times!

BUT

“We” are not changing as fast as you are.

Working in Defra Group there is a fact that I am coming to terms with, and that is that we have

our work devices and our own devices that work.

You may imagine that when a member of the Environment Agency, or the RPA, or APHA turns

up on your farm they have access to all the information that Defra Group has about your farm.

You would be wrong.

Often this situation continues because we are hampered in our understanding and belief in

what is possible by the barriers that we have in place.

We end up in a self fulfilling prophecy. This photo was taken at a meeting I was having where

my boss literally had his work devices and his devices that work. By this being the situation

with our IT imagine what it is like with our vast islands of data, let alone accessing that data on

the fly.

So, the 8000 datasets is not just about changing our thinking about data, it is about changing

our approach full stop.

My background is intellectual property law, I have spent my 15 or so years in the data space

looking not at the data, but at the rules around how the data is used.

I have spent a lot of time with data providing organisations ‘discussing’ how their licences for

data do not actually work. I have been responsible for using licences for data that, whilst they

work exactly as intended, are quite complicated.

Well, this is all changing around us the complicated rules around data are being simplified en

masse. Some of my most difficult people to work with are moving towards open data and

embracing what that means.

OS – presumption to publish – as long as we are not copying their crown jewels we have been

freed up to share more data

EA – transitioning all data to open removing charges

Defra – 8000

CEH – enabling open data licence – as long as we are not removing their markets we are

being freed up to share more

BGS – open data - have made lots of open data available

Etc etc

In part this has been enabled by the creation of the Open Government Licence. A standardised

approach to releasing data for maximum use and reuse.

So no longer can we point at the enforced edges of our islands created by others, we have all

that we need in place to work in a different seamless way.

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Image: iStockphoto/artzone

http://mashable.com/2013/11/23/channel-source/#yptC7lk_0qqW

Back to the data. What does this all mean, what is the transformation that is required?

We need to accept that no longer are we the only user of the data that we create, there is the

same if not more understanding about our data outside of our organisations as in them. We are

part of a community that want to use the data we have for all manner of things, some we can

guess, many we can not.

We are clearly hampered by our own processes in producing things that are fit for the user in

this technological era and this needs to be addressed. But this doesn’t mean we have to

improve our developer skills. It means we just empower the developers that are there.

There may be instances where it is right we do development on top of our data, where we have

a statutory responsibility for something, but in general we need to move away from trying to do

this – we need to give those who can serve those niches the materials (the data) to do this.

The best example of this working, in my view, has been the Transport for London approach to

data application development – by releasing their data as open data a multitude of applications

have been developed that integrate transport data into other services – they themselves

develop no apps.

Whilst focus at the moment within Defra Group and the Data Programme is hitting the 8000

target, when June comes and goes we will be moving into a much more user focussed stage.

So all that said – in summary.

What is the 8000 all about.

More data? Yes

More apps? Yes

A transformed data driven Defra Group? Absolutely!!

The release of 8000 datasets was designed to break the system. We needed to have a

challenge like this to break out of our island culture and look more to the future and the whole

system.

8000 datasets is changing the culture of Defra Group.

But we need to be careful about how we articulate this, too often, in my view, culture change is

thought of as someone else needing to change how they do things.

However, it is more fundamental than that, what we are talking about is behaviour change and

that means all of us. Start by looking in the mirror...

Think about the data that you have, about your business, your research, your house, your life.

Are you happy to share that with whoever for them to do with as they wish?

Probably not all of it, right? Why not?

That is the point! It is us that is the barrier to change.

By now, you think I am nuts?

Well watch this space and we will see!