Local Public Data Panel – Twenty-first Meeting
Open Data Institute, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE
25th July 2013
MINUTES AND ACTIONS
Panel: Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt (Chairman), Chris Taggart (Openlylocal.com), Roger Hampson (London Borough of Redbridge), Tim Allen (Visiting Professor, Birkbeck University), Gesche Schmid (Local Government Association), Vicky Sargent (Boilerhouse), David Evans (Information Commissioner’s Office), Olivia Burman (Cabinet Office), Dominic Campbell (FutureGov), Olivia Burman (Cabinet Office).
Other Attendees: Abraham Myer (Cabinet Office), Jo Dale (Cabinet Office), Shehla Husain (DCLG), Anthony Karabinas (DCLG), Eric Saunderson (ODI).
Apologies: Baroness Hanham (DCLG), Jos Creese (Hampshire County Council), Shane O’Neill (ELGIN - Electronic Local Government Information Network), Annemarie Naylor (Head of Assets, Locality), Nick Booth (Podnosh), Cllr Tim Cheetham (Cabinet Spokesperson for Children, Young People and Families, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council), Conn Crawford (Sunderland CC), Dennis Skinner (LGA), Steve Peters (DCLG).
Secretariat: Clare Clark and Padma Juggapah (DCLG).
Item 1: Welcome, Minutes and Actions Points
Nigel Shadbolt welcomed new Panel member, Dominic Campbell, a digital government and social innovation entrepreneur with a background in government policy, communications and engagement, with particular interest in local government back office strategy. The Panel approved the minutes and discussed progress on the action points of the 5th June 2013 meeting. Steve Peters would provide feedback from the UK Linked Data User Group at the next Panel meeting. All other actions were considered to be completed or would be revisited in agenda items below.
Item 2: Core Reference Data/National Information Infrastructure (NII)
Olivia Burman introduced this item. Following recommendations in the Shakespeare Review of Public Sector Information, Central Government Departments had been commissioned to identify datasets which will form the NII.
The Cabinet Office had also developed an inventory tool, template and guidance to help Departments identify their datasets and publish them on data.gov.uk: the aim is to create notifications and updates in real time as soon as data sets are being published.
The Cabinet Office was keen to use the Panel as a sounding board. The Panel was supportive of the NII and they welcomed the opportunity to inform this agenda. Clare explained that a Panel sub-group had discussed core reference data and that she had circulated a google doc, using the list of service areas from the LGA’s ESD tools as a starting point to ask Panel members to develop and populate the document with their own suggestions.
The Panel felt that the googledoc was very useful.
Action: Cabinet Office to circulate link to NII guidance to Panel
Action: Panel members to revisit the Core Reference Data list document and submit their inputs (if any) to Olivia and copy in the secretariat.
Item 3: Update from the Local Government Association (LGA): Breakthrough Fund Awards to Local Authorities and Update from the Local Open Data Group
Gesche Schmid presented a paper with an update on local transparency initiatives. There is continued demand for comparability of local government data and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has provided £1m Breakthrough Funding, managed by the LGA, to address local authority technical barriers. 24 applications were submitted, 11 of which were approved.
Officials from DCLG, Cabinet Office, LGA and Local eGovernment Standards Body, had formed a Local Open Data Group aiming to develop a common local data infrastructure for open data for data to be more easily compared and combined. The group want to propose a ‘local’ domain under data.gov.uk. Currently, the data.gov.uk site is designed to meet central government open data policy needs and not geared to local needs hence only a minority of local authorities had published content on the site.
The Panel felt the £1m fund could go a long way in supporting the open data agenda. They considered it important to continue to impress to local authorities the importance and benefits of providing data.
Action: Dominic and Gesche to consider how to publicise data.gov.uk/local using their contacts and networks.
Item 4(i): Workstream on Procurement:
Abraham Myer provided an overview of the work of the Commercial Review team in the Cabinet Office around a new Model Contract, which would help embed best practice procurement for big government IT contracts and outsourcing of large services projects of £20m and over, so services could be procured in an open and standardised way. This would increase transparency for large contracts and allow publishing contracts on Contracts Finder, the government portal. The new draft Model Contract was due to be published soon.
The Panel were concerned that the Model Contract contained a propriety code by using Dunns numbers and felt it would be better to use an open source such as the Companies House registration numbers/URIs and if the organisation was not a company then to use another definition such as HMRC tax identifiers with Dunns numbers as a fall-back position. Abraham Myer noted that they had not engaged with local authorities as the Model Contract was not perceived to be a direct local government product. However, there would be a short form version of the Model Contract to be published in 2014 and likely to be more useful to local government.
Action: Cllr Tim Cheetham to consider who to invite to provide Panel with an elected members’ view.
Action: Chris Taggart to set up Procurement sub-group to engage and discuss the principles of open procurement and input views into Cabinet Office’s work and consider inviting a Procurement Board representative to a future Panel meeting (Chris Taggart, Gesche Schmid, Tim Allen, Tim Cheetham).
4(ii) Central Government Initiatives – SMEs and Transparency
Jo Dale from the SME Team in the Cabinet Office provided an outline of the existing approach to procurement transparency (what must be published, where and how) and highlighted the work her team have been doing with the World Bank and Open Government Partnership. Lord Young has indicated his desire for a single market in his recent SME report. The Cabinet Office would be consulting on improving procurement transparency and would be keen for the Panel to be involved in these projects.
To help achieve greater transparency the Prime Minister has set out a number of transparency requirements. For example:
- Contracts Finder is available to any contracting authority for use free of charge- many local authorities have already committed to use the service.
- The Major Projects Authority publish detailed information relating to the delivery confidence of Government’s key programmes and projects, representing over £350 Billion worth of government spend. The report includes details about the schedule & costs.
- The UK has been an integral member of the Open Contracting Partnership, led by the World Bank and has played a key role in shaping a set of Principles and Technical Standards related to open contracting.
- The UK has published for consultation a Draft National Action Plan on Open Government.This includes the aspiration to create a system for Open Contracting. The Cabinet Office will look at what could be done to meet this aspiration.
Action: Cabinet Office/Secretariat to circulate the links to the Lord Young report.
Item 5: Update on opening up Planning Data and reports back from Panel members on sharing this information
Clare provided a brief re-cap of current position noting Annemarie Naylor’s helpful introductory paragraph to the Planning data table and that there was now a link to this on the Locality Website. She asked if Panel members had cascaded the link and messages to their contacts and what had been the reaction, if any.
The Panel suggested making the Planning table more accessible and available as a .csv file.
Action: Secretariat to pass suggestion of accessibility issues to Neighbourhood Planning/Locality Team.
Action: Planning/Locality team to check links on map.
Item 6: Future meeting dates
Future meeting dates to be decided.
Item 7: AOB and Close
Gesche Schmid highlighted that there was a current HMRC consultation on VAT registry with a deadline for response of 21st September. Chris Taggart explained that there were two parts to the consultation and that he had published a blog post on this.
Prof. Sir Nigel expressed the Panel’s thanks to Clare Clark for her support in taking forward the Panel’s agenda.
Action: Panel to provide co-ordinated response to VAT Consultation (Chris Taggart, Gesche Schmid, Tim Allen)
DCLG Secretariat
July 2013
Future meeting dates:
Thursday 17th October 2013