by Rufus Pollock, Lucy Chambers & Velichka DimitrovaOpen Knowledge Foundation

@okfn[.org], event hashtag #TTAPF

● Case studies of technology to promote transparency and accountability around revenue, spending and off-budget information

● Transparency around and participation in

decision making (e.g. participatory budgeting)

● Feedback from users of the tools as well as

creators (where possible) ● Qualitative not quantative research (in

general)

Terms of Reference

● Non-profit founded in 2004 ● Build and foster tools and communities to

create, use and share open knowledge and data

● Activities include

○ CKAN - data portal platform which powers many governmental and non-governmental portals around the world

○ OpenSpending.org - platform to upload, explore and visualise financial data

○ 15+ working groups and local chapters

The Open Knowledge Foundation

What is Open Data (exactly)? http://OpenDefinition.org/ defines open data as:

Data that anyone is free to use, re-use and redistribute data without technical or legal restrictions.

Why Open Data? ● transparency● innovation

Overview of Projects

Publishing Fiscal Data

Data Portals

http://data.gov.uk/

http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/ http://www.digitalbrain.go.kr

Publishing Fiscal Data: HighlightsHighlights

● Portals deliver consolidation of resources in one convenient location

● Data portals can be useful both within government as well as outside

● An explicit open data policy is not needed to start an open data portal

Recommendations

● Open financial data must be openly licensed and available in machine readable format (in bulk)

● Keep it simple - one can begin extremely simply

● Engage with your provider and user community

● Open tools for open data

Using Fiscal Data

How easy is it to actually find and use data?

● Fiscal transparency is about more than budgets: e.g. procurement, corporate identifiers

● How are things at present? Feedback was mixed● Key complaints:

○ Machine readability: PDFs - 10 complaints○ Disappearing data or hidden data○ Lack of supporting documentation to complement data releases○ Poor quality: 6 responses, e.g. inconsistencies between years

What can be done about this?

Standards for Fiscal Data

Standards for Fiscal Data Standards enable a distributed rather than a centralised approach in data publication and use● No or very limited general data standards in existence and in use

Recommendations ● Use well-known, commonly used formats (CSV, XLS or XML) for the

release of data.● Adopt existing coding conventions for shared entities● Publish additional information on the coding schemes used, such

as functional or economic classifications, charts of account● A simple user-driven standard for transaction-level spending data.

Best Case Scenario● A global spending data registry - similar to the IATI registry for aid

information

Revenue, Spending and Invisible Money

Tools for Oversight

Where Does the Money Come From?

http://sierraleone.revenuesystems.org/

http://www.revenuewatch.org/issues/data-tools

Where Does the Money Come From? ● User groups and audiences might not be whom you

expected, e.g. GoSL ● Bear in mind less-web-savvy users and lower bandwidth

/ older computers ● “Data is not always actionable simply because it is

available.” ● Substantial data-cleaning and data-wrangling may be

required

Where Does the Money Go? Tools for Oversight

Presenting Fiscal Data: Journalists

http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/budgets/

● Not used to working with raw data● Often rely on pre-computed

statistics● Up to date data (want notification

services)● Tools more commonly used by

advocacy groups, more time to dedicate to research.

● Structured data around the budgeting process e.g. how different MPs voted

● Disaggregated data

Getting Off-Budget On-Budget: OpenSpending and Publish What You Fund bit.ly/uganda-example

The importance of good data... a personal anecdote...

OpenSpending / PWYF joint project - mapping aid onto budgets

Data Collection and Wrangling

Visualisation

6 months - multiple people

< 1 man month

Where Does the Money Go? Summary

● Raw, machine readable data is vital. Converting data is one of the most labour-intensive parts of the process.

● Very few projects are currently able to trace difference

between planned and actual expenditure. Sunlight’s work in the United States is one of the few examples of success in this area.

Social Auditing and Following the Invisible Money

http://nrega.ap.gov.in/

Key resources for social auditors...

publishing (near) real time data.coming soon, mobile data collection

Social Auditing and Following the Invisible Money

● Technology (e.g. mobile) can help transform traditional labour-intensive social auditing practices - possibility to scale up significantly

● SMS technology has the possibility of reaching out to

rural areas ● Many project rely on sub-national level data to function:

it is at local and regional level ● Technology + social audit offers possibility of close to

real-time feedback and reporting

Participation

Participation http://solokotakita.org/

Participation http://demo.citizenbudget.com/

Participation: Highlights● Outreach and feedback: examples from World Bank and others of

effective use of tech for outreach and feedback e.g. geo-targeted SMS automatic phone-calls with the voice of the mayor and the Gol Mobile App http://bit.ly/gol-app

● Deliberation: Allowing citizens to submit their own project ideas (http:

//budgetballot.com/).

● Remote participation: online voting and surveys (numerous examples in census.) (http://demo.citizenbudget.com)

● Raising additional funds: Leih Deiner Stadt Geld in Germany (https:

//www.leihdeinerstadtgeld.de/)

● Increasing Budget Literacy http://demo.budgetallocator.com/ "Although you have balanced your budget, based on your current selections, we may still have to increase rates by 6.4%. Typically a 1% rates increase equates to 12 cents a week."

Highlights

Data, More and Better

● Publish more and publish openly○ Hard to utilize technology without access to data○ Data portals can play a key role here

● Data quality is still poor:○ Bulk machine-readable data - spreadsheet NOT

PDF○ Better use of standards (+ new, simple, standard(s))○ Connections to other datasets through e.g. reference

identifiers, geospatial information ○ Very significant portion of time spent cleaning and

preparing data● Timely data releases● Opportunity to build on IBP's OBI work

Reaching Out

● Technology can foster closer collaboration between

advocacy NGOs and journalists (and vice-versa: closer collaboration enhances value of tech)

● Extensive capacity-building for journalists to enable

them to analyze and present data. ● Tech and esp mobile can clearly play a significant role

on reaching out whether to inform or to receive feedback

Participation● Technology can add additional channels for

participation to reach out to 'the hard to reach' - tools are not a substitute for face-to-face contact.

● Keep it simple: Effective tools can target a particular

part of the PB process rather than a 'super-app' that will work at every stage.

● Technology can also be overwhelming, e.g. allowing

unfacilitated debate can create a lot of additional work for policy-makers to extract the key points

Technology Is Not a Magic Potion ● The report provides clear examples how technology can

and is delivering real benefits in relation to fiscal transparency.

● BUT technology is not a "magic potion". ● The existence of data and apps do not guarantee use

and use does not guarantee change.

Data Analysis Change

Participatatory BudgetingOutreachLots of NON-tech stuffOpen Data + Portals

Tools, Applications, Visualizations

Thanks

Rufus Pollock - @rufuspollockLucy Chambers - @lucyfedia

Velichka Dimitrova - @vndimitrova@okfn