Leading the way to open data clarity Inaugural Public Sector benchmark survey on Open Data - February 2013 Media slides

About the survey and respondents In December 2012 Dods conducted a study with Listpoint into Open Data across the public sector 1,017 responses was collected. This is a significant sample and enables valid conclusions to be drawn and comparisons to be made Respondents are broken down by sector (central government, local government, health, defence and police), by seniority and the respondent’s level of data expertise Differences of +/-5% or more will be statistically significant at the 95% confidence level Statistical significance will vary when the sample is broken down into individual sector segments. On some tables in this presentation, not all sub ‐ groups that add to the base figure are shown. As standard, this is either due to a very small number of respondents not fully completing a particular question, and/or to rounding of percentages

Total study sample *Please note that Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Agencies of the MoD are also included in the Central Government sample Sector comparisons have been made in the following charts and tables between Central Government, Local Government and Health. Please note that caution should be exercised when directly comparing the Health sub dataset as the sample is smaller than Local or Central Government

42% of public servants do not work on the policy directly, but are users of data 45 % do not know what their role is, or do not think they play any part in delivering the open data agenda 21% within Local Government say they work on the policy directly, double that of central government (10%)

To what extent do you feel you understand the government’s agenda on open data and benefits that would follow? Distinct lack of knowledge across the public sector of open data. 78% do not understand the benefits that should follow from the Open Data agenda Nearly 20% of Central Govt respondents never heard of the term open data, a higher proportion than across Local Govt and Health Knowledge of Open Data within Health considerably lower than Central or Local Govt

TOTAL OD ExpertUser Don't know/no OD role To make sure that data on one system can be mapped to data on another system 75%82%80%67% To make data readable by computers so better analysis can be done 50%60%55%43% To reduce the cost of new IT programmes 35%26%32%41% To make sure that every database has information collected in the same way 35%34%35%36% To make every database contain the same type of information 16%10%15%17% Which of the following best describes the role of data standards in the delivery of the open data agenda? 82% of experts and 80% of users rightly understand that data standards enable data on different systems to be mapped to one another However, significantly fewer understand that data standards help make data be readable by computers, and so are fundamental for making use of open data, and are also effective at reducing the cost of new IT programmes

Despite data often being used to aid decision making… 43% of public servants regularly use data from outside of their department to drive decisions in their department. This rises to 58% across Local Government and 62% across Health compared to 36% in central government 40% of public servants regularly use government datasets to help inform and drive decisions within their departments. Again, Central Government uses government datasets slightly less (37%) than local government (46%) and health (38%)

….useful data is not accessible enough Overall, 57% know what helpful data sets are available within their own organisation 75% do not know what helpful datasets are available elsewhere

Do civil servants see data as part of their role? More in Local Government and Health (60%) feel that being able to understand and make use of datasets is part of their role, than within central government (46%).

How important is big data in your plans? The overall perception of the role of big data is slightly more important across central government than local government. However, significantly more civil servants in central government (39%) do not know, compared to under a quarter of public servants across local government/health. When we look at the senior groups for central government and local government/health, we see that there is more importance than among junior grades placed on big data in departmental plans by senior public servants. Whereas there is less importance placed on big data in departmental plans by senior graded civil servants in central government.

Open data experts prioritise improving accountability of localised services and central government transparency; and enabling the private sector to create new and better services with open data. All others said shared services implementation was the priority.

1 Make data and standards available to govt (69) 1 Make data and standards available to govt (65) 2 Make data and standards available to pvt sector (50) 2 Education programme (42) 3 Appoint czars (41) 3 New IT (41) 4 Education programme (36) 4 Make data and standards available to pvt sector (39) 5 New IT (29) 5 Appoint czars (33) 6 Reporting progress (26) 6 Strategy (26) 7 Strategy (22) 7 Reporting progress (22) 1Make data and standards available to govt (63)1 2New IT (44)2Education programme (39) 3Education programme (37) 3New IT (37) 4Make data and standards available to pvt sector (33)4Appoint czars (34) 4Appoint czars (33) 5Make data and standards available to pvt sector (30) 6Reporting progress (22)6Strategy (22) 7Strategy (26) 7Reporting progress (21) Rank Experts Local Govt Central Govt Users Preferred priority areas by Group

Overwhelming 72% agree that it is going to become increasingly important over the next three years for civil servants to know how to access, share and use data to develop new policies and improve service delivery

Overall Conclusions of first benchmark study Distinct lack of knowledge on open data and government’s agenda Key improvement opportunities: enabling both public and private sector access to data and data standards raising awareness of what data standards do and interoperability using data standards to reduce the cost of IT programmes Great differences exist between central and local government’s application, use and understanding of open data Public servants lack understand about how their individual roles deliver on the open data agenda Experts recognise that private sector access to data standards and government datasets is essential for new jobs and better services – however, a large proportion of public servants do not see making data and data standards available to the private sector as a priority

Leading the way to open data clarity David Mitton Director Liberata Andy Waters Data Quality Manager Police ICT Company Directorate Home Office