Posts Tagged ‘power of information’
Data: Weekly Fuel Prices 11th Aug 09
James Darling and I met up for a chat about some data-related stuffs this afternoon, and came across this data on average fuel prices via the Office of National Statistics. This struck us both as being very useful (any hauliers out there who want to make some a nice visualisations?) so we threw together a script to convert it into (much) more useful formats.
Check out Weekly Fuel Prices, in more formats than you can shake a stick at, here.
Andrew Stott — the new Director of Digital Engagement 13th May 09
I was slightly bemused when the Cabinet Office announced that it was going to create a new £160k position for the Director of Digital Engagement.
The job seemed like a tall order: a list of requirements that it would be hard for any one person to fulfill, and a very big job to do with very limited resources. It seemed like a strange move to make when creating two positions at £80k a piece would probably still attract very qualified people, and give you more time and knowledge for your money.
Nonetheless, I watched with interest, and now, a tad later than expected, the position has been filled by Andrew Stott. My initial reaction was along the same lines as Emma Mulqueeny’s — more bemusement — but actually, I think Andrew is a good choice. Not who I’d have expected, but good nonetheless. As numerous people have said, he is very qualified, does have a brain the size of a planet, and has lots of experience pushing through the kind of change that we need. More than that, though, he’s practical.
I worked with Andrew briefly in 2008. One of the things we were looking at at the time was the quasi-XML version of the Civil Service Yearbook, which has lots of useful data in it. As is usually the case, though, it wasn’t proper XML — it’s variously broken, inconsistent and badly written. We spent a satisfying ten minutes at the end of the day bemoaning such irritations, and the next morning Andrew showed up at the office having spent all the previous evening writing a bunch of code to take the nasty XML and make it into useful data.
That, I think, is indicative of the man.
The Office of National Statistics and Postcodes 12th Mar 09
Here’s a story from FreeOurData which is, quite frankly, incredible. The Office of National Statistics, in preparing for the next census, has found that the postcode databases offered by the Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey aren’t accurate enough for their purposes. Their solution: to build their own database. This is fair. The postcode database is not amazingly accurate, and ONS have different requirements anyway.
Unfortunately, Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey make good money from selling the postcode databases to other organisations. These datasets are very valuable: you’ve probably made use of them whenever you’ve put your postcode into a website. Royal Mail and Ordnance survey did not — apparently — like the idea of ONS making another postcode database with which they’d presumably have to compete. So, rather than take that nice dataset and do useful things with it — like giving it back to us taxpayers — the ONS have pledged to build the database, use it for the census, and then destroy it.
Postcode databases are almost a holy grail. Of all the datasets in the country, liberating the postcode database for free reuse would probably create more value than any other. The thought of spending £12m on a new, super-accurate postcode database and then destroying it is wasteful, a huge missed opportunity and to be frank, completely idiotic.
We implore you: don’t do it.
Comment on the Power of Information Taskforce's report 11th Feb 09
The Power of Information Taskforce have been figuring out how to liberate public sector information, how to facilitate better use of the modern, social web in government, and how to support the efforts of those outside government who are doing worthy things. All in all, they’re a great bunch of people, doing great work. They’ve just published their draft report. This is notable for two reasons.
First, the report has been published using Commentariat, a WordPress theme from the folks at DIUS that makes it easy to browse and comment on big documents. It is fantastic — it really works well — and you’d never know it was WordPress, unless you checked. It’s a great example of WordPress’s flexibility.
For me, this informal consultation exercise is characterised by its ease. I read the report online. When I had something to say, I could just fill out the comment box. I could read other people’s comments, which helped to clarify my own thoughts. The PoI team have been posting comments too: responding to people, thanking them for their feedback, letting us know when they’ve made changes. Brilliant. It’s a real conversation between people who genuinely want to seek out ideas. It stands in stark contrast to the process of formal consultation, which is stifled, slow, more or less one-way, and frequently happens after all the important decisions have already been made. This exercise couldn’t be more different: agile, easy, conversational and public. I have no doubt that the report will be better because of it.
Second, the report itself is great: it hits all the right boxes. Be active in other people’s networks. Make sure civil servants have decent ‘net access — it’s astonishing how many of them are so filtered that they’re almost useless. Support third sector developers. Invest in innovative new ideas, even if they’re high risk. Liberate geodata from burdensome licensing and fees. There are 25 recommendations in all, and they’re all great.
If you have some time, read the beta report and leave some comments. It’s a great document, and great opportunity to get your thoughts in front of people who will listen.
Crime Maps 8th Jan 09
Maps to display levels of crime, nationwide, were promised by the Government last year. It’s great to see that they’ve finally launched. This is a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, it’s only a small one. Some forces have collaborated, but most have their own maps — which seems very strange. Why not a central service? We have the National Crime Reporting Standards, so there must be some consistency in the data from individual forces. It seems rather strange to implement 40-odd websites that all do the same thing, not to mention inconvenient: people who live in areas that adjoin other police forces will have to check two or more sites to get a good idea of the levels of crime in their neighbourhood.
It also means that the quality of these sites is extremely variable: from the good, to the average, to the downright mediocre. Why didn’t the Met simply share — or even, sell — its nice Google Maps mashup to the other forces around the country? Why waste money reinventing the wheel?
We would also love to see an API, or at least some way to get these stats in a machine-readable format. We’d like to be able to take this data and play with it. We’d like graphs that compare levels of crime to population, mean income, number of CCTV cameras, number of police officers per person, proximity to alcohol retailers, or anything else that takes our fancy. Of course, not all this data is readily available, but getting hold of crime stats would be a great improvement.
Finally: there’s some speculation over whether these maps break the Ordnance Survey’s licensing terms. Said terms are extremely bad: expect programmers who work in this sector to go into histrionics if you mention them. The Home Office have said, more or less, that they’ll sort it out. Quite how, or what was decided, is unclear: Did the OS get a shedload of money, or did the government come to some arrangement? If it’s the latter, I hope it may go some way towards helping third-sector projects too.
In any case, despite all these gripes, this is a great development. Congratulations are due to all involved: hopefully, this is just the first of many such innovations to come.