As well as the significant drive to open up public data nationally and reference datasets on data.gov.uk work is also underway to provide access to local data. A range of organisations including the NHS, education authorities and local councils currently collect large amount of data which can be opened up. As part of the ‘Smarter Government project’ the Prime Minister said
“there are many hundreds more that can be opened up - not only from central government but also from local councils, the NHS, police and education authorities.”
As part of this work Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Deputy Head (Research) of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is chairing a panel of experts to oversee the release of this local data. The Local Public Data Panel will champion the release of local public data and information sharing, accelerate progress in agreeing common standards for data released into the public sphere, and for making local public services better understood and more accessible.
The Local Public Data Panel members include:
- Tim Allen, Programme Director for Analysis and Research, Local Government Association
- Roger Hampson, Chief Executive of Redbridge
- Dave Smith, Chief Executive of Sunderland City Council
- Janet Hughes, Head of Scrutiny and Investigations at the Greater London Authority
- Jos Creese, Head of IT at Hampshire County Council
- Nick Aldridge, CEO of Mission Fish UK (eBay for Charity)
- William Perrin - Government web innovator and community activist
- Chris Taggart - web developer and founder of OpenlyLocal.com
The Local Data Panel met in January 2010 for this first time and will operate for a two year period to the end of 2011. Key aims are to:
- Ensure understanding of the case for making local public data freely available for re-use
- Promote innovative uses of local public data
- Sponsor the further development of a single place on line (‘data.gov.uk’) for all public sector data, while meeting the specific needs of the local government sector
- Encourage agreed standards for greater data and information sharing by local strategic partnerships.
6 comments
Comment by Anonymous posted on
So what happened at the meeting in January, and what's the forward work programme for the panel?
In particular, what plans are there to standardise the format of council expenditure data? The data published to date at http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/transparency/localgovernmentexpenditure/ is in a range of formats and styles, and isn't broadly comparable.
Comment by David Plant posted on
The details of the first meeting are available at https://www.data.gov.uk/blog/local-public-data-panel-first-meeting, while the Local Spending Data Guidance and other Panel papers are at http://data.gov.uk/blog/2897 .
Comment by Anonymous posted on
> the Local Spending Data Guidance and other Panel papers are at http://data.gov.uk/blog/2897 .
No they're not. It's a dead link. Is there any forward info about Local Data Panel meetings?
Comment by phil posted on
Hi,
The link provided by David was correct at time of writing, however the location of this pages changed with the re-organisation of the Blogs section of the site. The Local Spending Data Guidance can now be found at: http://data.gov.uk/blog/local-spending-data-guidance
Further posts from the Local Data Panel can now be found in the following section: http://data.gov.uk/blogs/leadership.
Many thanks,
Phil
Comment by Anonymous posted on
The link STILL doesn't work.
Comment by phil posted on
Hi,
Sorry to hear you are having trouble accessing this page - the revised links were added in my comment, at the bottom of this thread. You can see posts just from the Local Data Panel via the following link if this is helpful to you?
https://www.data.gov.uk/users/local-data-panel/track
Many thanks,
Phil