Professor David Rhind CBE
Chair of APPSI
APPSI Secretariat The National Archives Kew Richmond Surrey TW9 4DU
Email: secretariatappsi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk
Lord McNally MP
Minister of State for Justice
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ
28 June 2011
Dear Minister,
The latest Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI) meeting was held on
3 May 2011 in Kew.
The Panel was updated by The National Archives on:
new national and international developments in the public sector information
(PSI) landscape, including the revised The National Archives paper on the
Public Task;
the next phase of the UK Government Licensing Framework; and
The National Archives‟ response to the PSI Complaints Review carried out by
one of our members.
We commend the good work of The National Archives in these areas.
Right to Data
We were then pleased to be briefed by Nicola Westmore of the Cabinet Office on the
Right to Data Agenda and the protection of Freedoms Bill, in particular the clause
regarding the release and publication of datasets held by public authorities (currently
clause 98 in the Bill) and the attempt to define the term „dataset‟. Whilst we
understood the constraints of the remit to which the Cabinet Office Transparency
Team are working, we were concerned that the end result would be complex and
confusing.
Visionaries and the reality of staff skills
A presentation by the Local Government Association (LGA) described their planned
Knowledge Hub and the Apps they proposed to create for general use throughout
that sector. It will draw on data.gov.uk as well as other sources. There are choices to
be made about which data standards to use and the LGA would like to see a
coherent and consistent approach to metadata standards across the wider public
sector, so keeping costs down and facilitating the linking of data. A key message
which emerged in discussion was the gap between the ICT visionaries who were
advocating rapid developments and the capacity of those employed in local
government (and elsewhere) to progress the agenda. APPSI has consistently
supported the vision but considerable tensions already exist and expectations seem
to be running higher than can be delivered. We believe more piloting of new services
would be wise.
Devolved administrations
The conclusion of reports from the devolved administrations was that the then
imminent elections had ensured that there was little recent focus on PSI matters
(though there was a strong feeling that the Cabinet Office initiatives were almost
exclusively aimed at Whitehall departments).
Evolution to a more complex PSI model
We then had a far-reaching discussion which identified how much government data
collection is already out-sourced in part at least (e.g. the Population Census and
Ordnance Survey) and how „co-mingling‟ of data was already a fact of life in
government (e.g. data linkage between DVLA, insurance companies and garages to
enable on-line checking of MOT and insurance status before issuing a road tax disk).
We identified various examples of this co-mingling involving public and private sector
data as well as that which is „crowd-sourced‟ (or volunteered by the public). It seems
clear that the traditional model of PSI held by many in government may not reflect
these new realities, being predicated on a simple linear process whereby
governments collect data and then pass it on to outside users. In reality the situation
is increasingly interactive and web-like. This evolution has a number of
consequences:
Some PSI is not available for dissemination. A prime example is that of certain
transport data collected in the course of government contracts with Network
Rail and other contractors. At a recent Cabinet Office Public Data Corporation
workshop the Shareholder Executive Director present explained why such
information is not available by saying “we don‟t own it”. We understand this to
be a contractual matter. We now understand that this issue is being actively
followed up by the Cabinet Office team. It certainly needs to be fixed.
A number of government departments seem unaware of the multiple IPR
implications of such co-mingling and „licensing in‟. Failure to address the legal
issues associated with co-mingling could lead to the loss of data sets from PSI
and possible infringement actions (see above).
There has been a recent request to a government information provider for a
warranty of their information as being „fit for the user‟s purpose‟.
The applications for which the information is to used tend to be in areas
where critical business impacts may occur or safety of life issues exist. It
would not be surprising if this practice extended - with potentially significant
liability consequences for government.
Learning from the private sector
Finally, APPSI sought to identify the incentives for the public to share their personal
data with different bodies (e.g. via Tesco loyalty cards, Facebook, and responses to
the Population Census). We concluded that compulsion often did not work well –
indeed that it might be counter-productive - but that incentive mechanisms could be
devised in government which would minimise discontent and foster the willing
provision of personal data. Examples of these included requiring that any citizen who
did not lodge their personal information with an Local Authority or government
department would have to supply it afresh each time they sought to access a service
– whilst those already on the database would get any government service much
more efficiently and more speedily (rather like the “tick this box if you agree that we
can share your information with carefully selected partners” seen in the private
sector). This approach is consistent with the „nudge theory‟ but public trust issues
need careful consideration.
I trust this is helpful. The evolution of PSI re-use in recent months has been rapid
and APPSI members suspect that the very nature of what we consider to be key
factors in its success are changing. In particular, we suspect that the legal dimension
is now becoming at least as important as the technological enablement to the
success of the PSI agenda. This has obvious implications for the MoJ, Cabinet Office
and government procurement.
Yours sincerely,
Professor David Rhind CBE
Chair of APPSI
cc. Oliver Morley, Chief Executive and Keeper, and Carol Tullo, Director of
Information Policy and Services, The National Archives