Action 16: help third party organisations create new services and better information access for their own users by opening up government data and transactions
Updated 16 January 2015
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This action forms part of the Government Digital Strategy.
Action 16 was added to the Digital Strategy in December 2013, so reporting on departments’ actions will begin with 2014.
Here’s how departments are responding to this action:
1. The Attorney General’s Office
1.1 Progress during 2014
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) does not hold data sets that would be appropriate to open up through application programme interfaces (APIs).
1.2 Planned activities in 2015
AGO does not hold data sets that would be appropriate to open up through APIs.
2. Cabinet Office
2.1 Progress during 2014
Data.gov.uk chaired the steering group of Ckan, the international organisation responsible for the integrity of the open source software behind data.gov.uk and used by over 25 countries, cities and regions across the world.
Data.gov.uk ran an open policy exercise to consult on redevelopment of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). It ran 3 workshops in October with over 100 representatives from small and medium sized enterprises, government, local authorities and voluntary organisations. It proposed a framework to list and handle the most important datasets for the nation. During December it shared a prototype of the proposition to gather further user views.
2.2 Planned activities in 2015
Data.gov.uk already offers application programme interfaces (APIs) for its metadata and will work to provide data APIs for NII datasets as well as reference services for vocabularies of code for both government and local authority data.
3. Department of Business, Innovation and Skills
3.1 Progress during 2014
Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) promoted this to the 5 exemplar organisations and the wider partner organisations.
The Shareholder Executive started a public engagement exercise to ascertain SME and developer awareness of data held by organisations such as Companies House, the Land Registry, the Met Office and Ordnance Survey. The consultation aimed to identify any issues, and provide information to help establish ways for SMEs and developers to access Public Data Group data more easily.
3.2 Planned activities in 2015
BIS will continue to promote this within the department and across BIS organisations.
4. Department for Education
4.1 Progress during 2014
Department for Education (DfE) fully supports the principles of opening up government data and transactions to help third party organisations create new digital services for the public. DfE initiated a number of open data projects with the aim of working with industry and market-leading organisations to develop additional innovative digital services that meet user needs.
4.2 Planned activities in 2015
DfE will build on the open data work it started. It will iterate and where possible open up more data sets, collaborating with third parties to create new digital services. It will use open standards to enable DfE data to be used across the widest possible range of platforms and services.
5. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Progress during 2014
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) began discovery of a project to enable systematic data sharing, both internally and externally, via APIs.
5.1 Planned activities in 2015
In 2015 Defra will proceed to alpha and public beta development of their project to enable systematic data sharing, both internally and externally, via APIs, subject to resource and business rationale.
6. Department for International Development
6.1 Progress during 2014
Department for International Development (DFID) continued to publish open data on international development data in the IATI standard. This includes full details of all international development projects, including documents, transactions, budgets and sub-national geographic locations. The Development Tracker re-used IATI open data from DFID, other government departments, non-governmental organisations and private sector suppliers, and enables the public in the UK and other stakeholders to use international development data. In addition DFID continued to publish monthly spend on transactions over £500 and other corporate open data.
6.2 Planned activities for 2015
DFID will continue to improve the quality and coverage of the IATI open data, and continue to improve the ease with which international development funding can be traced through the delivery chain (NGOs, private sector, multilateral agencies). It will continue to evolve Development Tracker in response to user needs and to influence the evolution of the IATI open standard through international engagement. The transition to the open document standard will further improve accessibility to DFID’s information.
7. Department for Transport
7.1 Progress during 2014
DVLA’s View driving record opened up access to drivers’ own data, including to industry stakeholders.
7.2 Planned Activities 2015
Share my driving licence service will be accessible by third parties to provide access to driver data.
8. Department of Culture, Media and Sport
8.1 Progress during 2014
Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) does not provide transactional services for citizens. DCMS has continued to publish and make available its own transactional and freedom of information (FOI) data in line with GDS best practice.
8.2 Planned activities in 2015
DCMS will continue to publish and make available its own transactional and FOI data in line with GDS best practice.
9. Department of Energy and Climate Change
9.1 Progress during 2014
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published 2 datasets of household level data covering domestic properties in England and Wales from the National Energy Efficiency Database (NEED).
In April a sample of 49,815 records (representative of the housing stock) was published through GOV.UK and data.gov.uk.
In July a sample of 4 million records was released on the UK Data Archive under an end user licence.
In November DECC surveyed its user list to assess the value of these releases and to identify potential changes to future data releases. The survey was promoted through the Open Data User Group and the Cabinet Office Transparency team.
9.2 Planned activities in 2015
Future work on NEED will depend on the November 2014 survey results. DECC will also work with Cabinet Office to identify data releases for the next revisions of the National Information Infrastructure.
10. Department of Health
10.1 Progress during 2014
Department of Health’s revised digital strategy commits the department to acting with simplicity, evidence and openness in all the work DH does for the public, its stakeholders and staff.
The GOV.UK Transactions Explorer gives a high-level view of the services the department currently provides.
10.2 Planned activities in 2015
We expect several of DH’s major transactions to develop APIs to provide live data feeds to performance dashboards.
11. Department for Work and Pensions
11.1 Progress during 2014
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) finished its discovery into secure communications and data transfer between the department, its customers and third party stakeholders. These include other government departments, local councils, medical professionals, and Citizens Advice.
11.2 Planned activities in 2015
DWP will continue to open up government data and transactions where it can to help third party organisations create new services and better information access for their own users.
12. Foreign and Commonwealth Office
12.1 Progress during 2014
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) already releases travel advice through an API.
12.2 Planned activities in 2015
FCO will consider data that could be released through APIs, including the scope to extend Performance Platform data to cover non-digital elements of major transactions.
13. HM Revenue and Customs
13.1 Progress during 2014
HMRC shared performance metrics data with software developers and had regular meetings with interested third party suppliers to keep them informed on work to update and expand performance metrics. The department appointed a digital service manager at senior civil servant level to lead on performance metric work.
13.2 Planned activities in 2015
HMRC will expand sharing performance metrics data to third parties, starting with its new registration service.
14. HM Treasury
14.1 Progress during 2014
HM Treasury (HMT) has continued to support the cross-government work on open formats for documents.
14.2 Planned activities in 2015
HMT will continue to support the cross-government work on open formats for documents.
15. Home Office
15.1 Progress during 2014
Home Office established a high-level working group to explore options for achieving greater transparency and accessibility of police records. The Police.uk team continued to work with users and stakeholders to define requirements for this service. Home Office participated in the Crime and Justice Data Challenge, organised by NESTA and the Open Data Institute.
15.2 Planned activities in 2015
Home Office will contribute to the development of the cross-government National Information Infrastructure. It hopes this will identify further ways to become more transparent, with increased accountability and enhanced social and economic growth.
The high-level working group will continue to explore options for, and the feasibility of, achieving greater transparency and accessibility of police records.
16. Ministry of Defence
16.1 Progress during 2014
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) was one of the biggest contributors of public data sets on data.gov.uk.
16.2 Planned activities in 2015
MOD will continue to explore with stakeholders and users ways to get value from defence data.
17. Ministry of Justice
17.1 Progress during 2014
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) worked on a number of initiatives to open up government data. It improved and opened up data to 16 APIs. The tribunals database team built online and API solutions to improve access to information about the outcome of trials and tribunals.
MOJ opened up data through innovation drives and attending more digital data events such as Hackathon conferences. At the TechCrunch Disrupt Europe Hackathon, sponsored by MOJ Digital Services, ethical hackers faced a challenge to build something useful for victims of crime. MOJ’s team built an application for a Twitter-based crime map displaying crime rates and risks in areas near an individual.
17.2 Planned activities in 2015
MOJ Digital Services will take 2 approaches to opening up data and transactions. To present timely and accurate data-driven content on GOV.UK, it will build systems which provide required data to GOV.UK. MOJ will also support access to transactions through APIs that support a known user need and complement user-facing services.
MOJ Digital Services will work closely with partners across government to ensure the effective use of open data standards and the creation of government data standards, supported by the necessary tools, services and communities.