Open Data

OPen data is something that we should all be on our hands and knees praying that God gives us more of it. The reasons is that it gives us more ability to find out what is going on , AND find out if there are any errors that the government are making. Just look at this, someone using open data to reverse parking charges. New York's own data being used to prove its actions wrong. Amazing isn't it? So why is this important and why should we be looking at it? Because it means we have more information on what is going on in the local area and we are also more empowered to make decisions in our local area.

So why bring this up to you guys? Shouldn't we find out what the government is doing to improve open data, or its policy on open data is? I mean we pay them to generate this information, shouldn't we be able to see it? This is the thing, the government has actually published a lot of data, and finances, to increase the amount of data that is published. The local government association has a huge amount of data that is published (And shows which projects have been funded) and the government has published a set of guidelines that help increase the amount of data that is published, too. Central Government even blogged about the issue, which shows how much they want to increase how much data is generated for open use.

Now all of this is great, and helps build a picture of what is going on, but it doesn't really show us the amount of work OR what data is being produced. For example, the Welsh government has released a lot of open data and created a really cool noise map, which shows you how noisey different areas in Wales are (and the cause of them). But what about Welsh Councils? What about the Welsh Government? How much money are they funding and what are they releasing? Do they have policies on open data? Wales does have an Stat Wales which holds a huge amount of information on things going on in wales.

So how much money is funded to it? Only time will tell. What about the National Assembly of Wales? Again, Time will tell.

So let's get the crux of the matter. What did the local councils answer? I asked them all the same questions, which were

1) How much funding was allocated to your council by the Welsh Government for use in open data

2) How much funding did your council give towards the development of open data policies and resources

3) How much funding did your council receive from central government for the development of open data

4) Has your council participated in any "Hackfests" (For example http://nhshackday.com/)

Here are the results:

Name	Welsh Government	Council	Central	Hackdays
Blaenau
Bridgend	No	No	No	No
Caerphilly	No	No	No	No
Cardiff	No	no	no	No
Carmarthenshire	No	No	no	No
Ceredigion	NO	No	No	No
Conway
Denbighshire	No	No	No	No
Flintshire	No	No	No	No
Gwynedd	No	No	No	No – possible regional
Anglesey	No	No	No	no
Merthyr Tydfil	No	No	No	No
Monmouth	No	No	No	No
Neath Port Talbot
Newport	No	Unable – allocated in other budgets	No	No
Pembroke	No	No	No	No
Powys	No	No	No	No
RCT
Swansea	No	No	No	Hack the City @ Tech Hub Swansea, not in Westminster Hackthon
Torfaen	No	No	No	Yes – Camp Cymru + ODI training
Vale Of Glamorgan	No	No	No	No
Wrexham	No	No	No	No

Well, that's a pretty clear picture, isn't it? So why even bring this up here? Its because Wales needs to look at innovations with the way that it uses it services. It needs to be able to look at different ways to change and develop. This would be an amazing way for councils to be able to open up and develop.

I am proud of Swansea and Torfaen as they have looked at Hack Fests (Which are opportunities for people to tinker with data and see what pops up. I wonder how it has affected their council and what innovations that they have made..