UK’s open data policy opens doors for social enterprises

(Article published in the blog of Finnish Institute in London 18/02/2010)

In the spirit of UK’s Freedom of Information Act HM Government recently launched a website (http://data.gov.uk) where all public information is to be presented in a computer-readable and easily accessible format.

In a nutshell the purpose of data.gov.uk is to open up all non-personal data for free reuse. An easy access to data is believed to encourage citizens to create innovative applications for purposes of different kinds.

The obvious advantage of free data project is the enhancement of both civic activity and government transparency. It clearly emphasises the importance of an old mantra used by information professionals worldwide – right information for the right people at the right time. In a democratic civic society this mantra basically means that all public information should be accessible to all, at any time.

Open data project could potentially mean a promising opportunity to social entrepreneurship as well. Our society is filled with active and innovative people who only need the last and decisive ignition to jumpstart a successful social enterprise.

Open and free data could just be that ignition. For an example, imagine a scenario where – after collecting and analysing relevant information from the free database – a group of individuals decide to set up a community-owned nursery in an area where there is a high number of low-income families and a shortage of free day care services, thereby empowering the community by increasing the earning potential of families.

It has to be noted, though, that there are already numerous advert-financed non-profit websites (mashup) online which present useful societal information in a user-friendly way, both in UK and in Finland. One example of such a mashup is a scheme presented in leading Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (HS 8.2.2010), which interviewed two voluntary fire fighters who had come up with a mashup that places on map all emergencies reported to the national emergency centre. All income from adverts is invested to further development of the service.

If social entrepreneurs as a group endorse the ideology of open data, then this could be seen as a significant argument for the benefits of freedom of information at large. That is to say, one main initiative behind document publicity has always been the enhancement of citizens’ scope for action.

Naturally this commits social enterprises to even greater transparency within their own administration and governance. Theoretically and ideologically perhaps even more interesting issue is the transparency within social enterprises. Social enterprises are not merely customers benefiting from open data policy but they also have a heavy responsibility to act by freedom of information principles.

Transparency indeed is one of the cornerstone values of social entrepreneurship. As the benefit goes directly – in most cases anyway – to the community, it is only logical that the decision-making processes and accounting are open to community as well. Question is, whether social entrepreneurs can capitalise this golden chance to prove that the necessity of document secrecy in the world of business is merely a myth – if it indeed is.

In the meantime, they can by all means pick all the open data cherries of freedom of information cake and create a flourishing network of free data –powered social enterprises. And why not teach other enterprises a lesson about the advantages of transparency and open data as well.

The Missing Link

Good news from the field of civic society and open governance. A group working on i.a. the enhancement of the feasibility of web 2.0 in civic participation has published its final report, on which the Ministry of Finance is currently requesting for comments.

It is no secret that Finnish public sector still lacks certain dynamics when it comes to information policy and its usage on behalf of  deliberative e-Democracy and e-Participation. Right information for the right people at the right time is an old cliché used by data management professionals, by which we try to justify our existence. It is time this cliché was put more effectively in use.

A cliché it may be, but a justifiable one. In fact, the role of data management could be even bigger in public agencies. I tend to speak about extended data management (fin. laaja tiedonhallinta), which connects the traditional parts of data management – registry (kirjaamo), record management (asiakirjahallinto) and archiving (arkistointi) - with public relations/communication (viestintä/tiedotus), knowledge management (tietämyksenhallinta) and even data administration (tietohallinto).

I believe that in order to reach the aim of above-mentioned cliché and thus effeticely promote electronic civic participation certain measures need to be taken. The preceding clarification of the roles of different branches of information policy is one of them. Nowadays it can be quite unclear who is in charge of issues concerning the promotion of civic participation and freedom of information.

Someone should have a clear vision on the big picture and have a control of every dimension of information. For example, public relations and communication are capable of transmitting the information here and now, but in order to control the time-dimension of information archives are needed. They handle different dimensions of the same information but may never be in any contact with each other. Also, in order to fully utilize the benefits of an active civic society the whole idea of distributing only selected pieces of information is way behind the times. Limitations caused by the law on freedom of information (621/1999 24§) must naturally be taken into account.

A mere enhancement of the feasibility of civic participation is a good start but not enough. From the historian’s point of view equally important issue is the preservation of the context and provenance of the on-line discussions and other forms of deliberative policymaking. It is relatively easy to draw rules for the document management of authorities, but constantly developing and open-to-all wiki-environment is a whole new ballgame, so to say.

In order to achieve a sufficient level of preservation we need historically, societally and technologically savvy information professionals who are aware of the amount, type and provenance of the information as well as legislative issues. In addition to all that, they should be able to innovatively promote civic activity and civic society by means of freely and easily accessible information. Nowadays the gap between a technologically illiterate archivist and a wiki-conscious, microblogging pr-officer can be huge although their jobs should be inter-related in many ways.