Open Data & Local Authorities

Paul MaltbyDirector of Open Data and Government Innovation

@_OpenP

• Economic growth derived from data-led

businesses

• Accountability of government to citizens

• Better Public Services

Deloitte 2013: £1.8bn direct economic benefits in

UK... and growing

At national level we have 3

aims for open data

Government data as a raw

material

Data.gov.uk the

government data

portal has over 15000

open datasets and

information on a

further 4080

unpublished datasets

How are Local Authorities already

taking advantage of Open Data?

Saving money

Improving policy and operations

Enabling cross-service collaboration

Connecting to citizens

Developing local businesses

Cutting procurement costs

Publishing spend data at a local

level has created a market for

start-ups such as Spend Network

to create price transparency and

drive up competitiveness

Councils like Norfolk CC have

used open spend data to improve

their procurement strategy,

driving down costs for the Local

Authority

Saving money

Saving money

Route Planning Tools

Local Authorities are

exploiting openly available

mapping technology to

improve quality and cost of

waste collection, achieve

better procurement and

develop more efficient

service partnerships

East Northamptonshire

Council saved £200,000

annually

RouteSmart

.

Improving policy and

operations

Data can be filtered by response time or

incident time

Incident Time (h)

There are also filters for incident type,

property type

All data can be viewed and filtered on either a map or

a graph which allows for trends to be easily seen

Individual boroughs or wards can be selected and there is

also an option to view information about individual incidents

Improving policy and

operationsInteractive Fire Brigade incident

reporting dashboard

Cross-service collaboration

Leeds are using open data

from different public

services to make wiser

collective choices about

cost reductions: eg helping

the cultural sector deal

with financial challenges

Cross-service collaboration

Across Greater Manchester

Local Authorities are taking

data collaboration a step

further by using common data

standards to produce linked

data.

This enables research and

applications across the city

region, including finding

recycling centres, and

investigating planning

applications

Greater

Manchester Data

Synchronisation

Project

Connecting to citizens

Fixmystreet

provides a well-

known feedback loop

for local services by

allowing people to

report issues

Travel information

Real time public

transport and car

parking space

information is

becoming ubiquitous.

Companies like

Transport API are

supporting next

generation services,

like the overlay of

social media data

Connecting to citizens

Glasgow’s Active Travel

initiative will show how

technology can help make

the city more cyclist

friendly

People will be encouraged

to use a smartphone app to

help collect information

which will pave the way for

infrastructure

improvements

Connecting to citizens

Leeds City

Dashboard provides

customisable widgets

with real time

information about the

city from transport

issues and weather,

through to sports

news and shopping

centre footfall figures

Connecting to citizens

Connecting to citizens

Hampshire Hub provides

the data and support

network enabling the

creation of applications

such as Weather you do

or Weather You Don’t

(WUDOWUD) to help map

and predict the impact of

extreme weather

Helping retail business

Glasgow is working with

private companies to open up

footfall data from public and

private sources which can be

used alongside city travel

patterns to help develop the

city-centre economy

At a national level major

users of open data are retail,

financial services companies

Developing local businesses

Growing data start-ups

ODI Leeds is providing a space

for new tech start-ups and a

space to bring together the City’s

data community, helping position

the city as a centre of new data

expertise

Some of the economic and civic

value of open data is hard to

predict

Developing local businesses

Support to open up data

● Cabinet Office Release of Data

Fund £4m, 30 projects

● Free open data training for public

servants

● Open Data Challenge Series

(ODI and NESTA)

● LGA Local Breakthrough Fund

● Dept for Business Central

Breakthrough Fund