1. Be careful what you wish for – PSI & the law of unintended consequences

2. Themes What is APPSI? Who I am? PSI policy progress PSI practice in the UK Law of unintended consequences 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan2

3. APPSI – explanatory note A Non Departmental Public Body, reporting into Ministry of Justice, with three defined roles: 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan3 www.appsi.gov.uk

4. APPSI – explanatory note A Non Departmental Public Body, reporting into Ministry of Justice, with three defined roles: 1.To advise Ministers on how to encourage and create opportunities in the information industry for greater re-use of public sector information; 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan4 www.appsi.gov.uk

5. APPSI – explanatory note A Non Departmental Public Body, reporting into Ministry of Justice, with three defined roles: 2. To advise the Director of the Office of Public Sector Information and Controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office about changes and opportunities in the information industry, so that the licensing of Crown copyright and public sector information is aligned with current and emerging developments; 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan5 www.appsi.gov.uk

6. APPSI – explanatory note A Non Departmental Public Body, reporting into Ministry of Justice, with three defined roles: 3. To review and consider complaints under the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005 and advise on the impact of the complaints procedures under those regulations. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan6 www.appsi.gov.uk

7. APPSI – explanatory note A broad church – representative of a wide variety of views, from public and private sectors SON speaking purely in a personal capacity – Shane ONeill Associates an advisory firm to many public and private sector clients(www.shaneoneill.co.uk/ clients)www.shaneoneill.co.uk/ clients ) 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan7 www.appsi.gov.uk

8. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan8 Who we are

9. PSI policy progress in UK 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan9

10. Cross party support for opening up PSI 26 May 2010EPublishing Innovation Forum 201010 Information is the key. An informed citizen is a powerful citizen. - 7 December 2009 o ur plans to open up government data and spending information will not only help us to cut wasteful spending, it will also create an estimated £6 billion in additional value for the UK. - Manifesto April 2010

11. Data Gov UK 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan11

12. Ordnance Survey opens up..its Data 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan12

13. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan13 Ordnance Survey opens up..its API

14. Public sector licencing 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan14

15. Coalition Agreement ….. Setting government data free will bring significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non- profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites. (Section 16) 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan15 Coalition Government quickens the pace...

16. Public Data Principles public data policy and practice will be clearly driven by the public and businesses who want to use the data public data will be released under the same open licence which enables free re-use, including commercial re-use public bodies should actively enable the re-use of their public data public data will be published using open standards and in reusable form release data quickly, and then re-publish it in linked data form public bodies should maintain and publish inventories of their data holdings http://data.gov.uk/wiki/Public_Data_Principles

17. Clause 92:... Where (a) an applicant makes a request for information to a public authority in respect of information that is, or forms part of, a dataset held by the public authority, and (b) on making the request for information, the applicant expresses a preference for communication by means of the provision to the applicant of a copy of the information in electronic form, the public authority must, so far as reasonably practicable, provide the information to the applicant in an electronic form which is capable of re- use. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan17 Protection of Freedoms Bill, 2011

18. FOI & PSI regimes aligning.... 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan18 Access Freedom of Information Environmental Information Regulations Data Protection Information inventories and asset registers Use and re-use PSI Regulations Information Fair Trader Scheme UK Government Licensing Framework Public task - Principles and toolkit

19. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan19 PSI practice in UK

20. Policy is not practice... Argument today: – FOI regime and context is very different from PSI for commercial re-use – Regulatory, economic and cultural drivers are different – Boundaries of Public & Private becoming blurred And therefore different approach required....to avoid unintended consequences 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan20

21. Regulatory FOI is mandatory, has real punishments, and vigorous independent regulator PSI is not (A public body may permit re-use..., SI 1515, 2005) Protection of Freedoms Bill (...insofar as reasonably practical) OPSI has no big stick, little resource, and is stuck between Governments own ambiguities 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan21

22. Economic FOI costs were unforeseen (and enormous) PSI costs are unknown but include: – Inventory asset creation and updating – Information management ( policies, personal data protection, third party rights management etc) – Technical investment – Supporting users ( e.g. service levels) Government (including OPSI and TNA as well as Trading Funds) benefit from commercial partnerships 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan22

23. Cultural Data hugging second nature to many public officials Proper concern for: – confidentiality of personal data – quality of records – how information will be interpreted Huge gap between Policy rhetoric and actualite 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan23

24. Confidentiality Health Foundation Trust, response 11 th April 2011 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan24 the Trusts current position that only Directors/Consultants details are to be released for publishing on external website databases.

25. Quality A national public body, response, 31 st March 2011 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan25 It is the current policy of the _________ Road Works Commissioner not to provide data from the ________ Road Works Register for commercial purposes. The data provided is not to a level of accuracy that I would be content to allow it to be used for commercial purposes.

26. Public sector or private sector? Boundaries are shifting – – Example: Central Government has already in effect privatised or outsourced substantial parts of Utilities and Transport infrastructures to private companies – to the point where, despite Transport data being the most requested of datasets, Government spokespersons say Transport data is out of scope of present policy initiatives to open data as we dont own it – Example: Local National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) gives its software to an IT outsourcing company. The supplier promised in return to offer services free of charge to the public sector but to sell the data to the public sector.National Police Improvement Agency Authorities increasingly relying on managed services - suppliers not contractually obliged to provide data services for free 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan26

27. 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan27 Law of unintended consequences

28. Dangers PSI ambiguities (in regulations, in practice, in need for public sector bodies to make savings) will lead box ticking – not real commercial growth Raise costs base for unproven benefits All for endgame which the commercial is not universally demanding 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan28

29. Mixed economy Procurement practices must catch up with regulatory framework – otherwise much of public data will be managed outside of regulations Define core PSI datasets – regardless of whether managed in public or private sector? Either mandate (like FOI) or you incentivise :Charging is ok! (subject to competition law and marginal rates will fall over time) Otherwise Policy making resembles a bicycle without a chain 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan29

30. info@shaneoneill.co.uk www.shaneoneill.co.uk Office: +44 (0)208 995 9195 Mobile: +44 (0)7710 350214 Skype: shanegoneill 5th May 2011LAPSI Conference, Milan30