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

“Be careful what you wish for” – PSI & the law of unintended

consequences

Themes

• What is APPSI? Who I am?

• PSI policy progress

• PSI practice in the UK

• Law of unintended consequences

5th May 2011 LAPSI Conference, Milan 2

APPSI – explanatory note

A Non Departmental Public Body, reporting into Ministry of Justice, with three defined roles:


www.appsi.gov.uk



1. To advise Ministers on how to encourage and create opportunities in the information industry for greater re-use of public sector information;


www.appsi.gov.uk



2. To advise the Director of the Office of Public Sector Information and Controller of Her Majesty’s 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;


www.appsi.gov.uk



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.


www.appsi.gov.uk


A “broad church” – representative of a wide variety of views, from public and private sectors

SON speaking purely in a personal capacity – Shane O’Neill Associates an advisory firm to many public and private sector clients(www.shaneoneill.co.uk/clients)

)


www.appsi.gov.uk


Who we are

PSI policy progress in UK


Cross party support for opening up PSI

26 May 2010 EPublishing Innovation Forum 2010 10

“Information is the key. An

informed citizen is a powerful

citizen.”- 7 December 2009

“our 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

Data Gov UK


Ordnance Survey opens up..its Data

•


•


Ordnance Survey opens up..its API

Public sector licencing


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)


Coalition Government quickens the pace...

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

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.”


”Protection of Freedoms” Bill, 2011

FOI & PSI regimes aligning....


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


PSI practice in UK

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


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 Government’s own ambiguities


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


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


“Confidentiality”

Health Foundation Trust, response 11th April 2011


“the Trust’s current position that only Directors/Consultants details are to be released for publishing on external website

databases.”

“Quality”

A national public body, response, 31st March 2011


“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.”

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 don’t 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.

• Authorities increasingly relying on managed services - suppliers not contractually obliged to provide data services for free



Law of unintended consequences

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


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


[email protected]

www.shaneoneill.co.uk

Office: +44 (0)208 995 9195

Mobile: +44 (0)7710 350214

Skype: shanegoneill


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

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