RICS response to the Public Data Corporation & Open Data Consultations
To be emailed to:
Transparency Team
Cabinet Office
4/W2
1 Horse Guards Road
London
SW1A 2AS
Email:
Tel: 0207 271 1392
Usual top and tail RICS policy response blurb
RICS is very much in support of the proposals within both the Public Data Corporation (PDC) and Open Data Consultations and occupies a unique position with regards to broad member usage of government data. This can include Ordnance Survey mapping datasets, coastal & marine licensing data, planning & development data, land registry house price indexes, Environment Agency flood information, construction statistics, Valuation Office Agency datasets, building control information and health & safety information to name but a few. Chartered surveyors, both in the private and public sectors, are expert users of land, property and built environment datasets.
RICS has responded to numerous data orientated policy responses such as those on the future of Ordnance Survey, Office of Public Sector Information reviews and is a ‘Spatial Data Interest Community’ (SDIC) within the EU Commission InSpire spatial data framework initiative. RICS is also a constituent member of the Location User Group a sub committee of the Location Council ra.gov.uk/category/location-council/
Without answering any of the specific questions within each of the consultations we would like to express some general opinions on both the PDC and Open Data.
As mentioned in the initial Cabinet Office press release we agree that there is an inextricable link between these two consultations and that the principles underpinning the formation of a sustainable and effective Public Data Corporation can not exist without a corresponding set of clear and transparent principles underpinning Open Data policy. RICS is very supportive of the formation of a Transparency Board and of the proposed Open Data approach of creating a ‘pull’ (an enhanced right to data) and a ‘push’ (a presumption of publication) mentality. This approach also needs to be mirrored in the ‘licensing’ and ‘charging’ mechanisms. ‘Licensing’ for instance does need a change of emphasis so that an ‘Open Data’ license becomes ‘permission for use’ rather than a traditional ‘restriction of use’. A sustainable ‘charging’ regime should be consistent, transparent and a minor administrative function for all PDC organisations.
RICS would also highlight our adherence, through our Royal Charter, to the ‘public good’ and that in the spirit of the ‘public good’ public accessibility to data is to be encouraged. We would also highlight issues of data quality and the explicit need to adhere to internationally agreed data standards such as InSpire and relevant International Standards Organisation (ISO) protocols.
Public access to data is important but access to badly structured, inappropriate or just plain inaccurate data needs careful attention. The inclusion of a specific and enforced protocol on the addition of ‘metadata’ to publicly accessible datasets should be carefully considered and agreed between all participants in the ‘Open Data’ initiative and all members of the Public Data Corporation. There should also be a basic mechanism to allow PDC organisations to vet and highlight why certain datasets may be unusable in their current format. RICS is very supportive of the principles of sustainable data collection and use and its basic tenet of ‘capture once use many times’. Moving towards both a PDC and an Open Data policy should help to achieve this as government departments become more aware of and start to use Open Data. We would envisage that one of the largest user groups of PDC available datasets will be other PDC constituent bodies and would advise that ‘licensing’ and ‘charging ‘ arrangements should promote and enable this potential scenario.
The online register of public assets is a good example of a recent ‘Open Data’ initiative and the links between the ‘localism’ agenda and data access are extensive. The ongoing release of data through the data.gov.uk initiative is welcomed.
The public task aspect of the PDC and ‘Open Data’ policy needs careful consideration; we would advise a slight rethinking on what actually constitutes ‘Public Data’. We would put forward the following definition as an example - ‘Public data’ are the objective, factual, non-personal data collected by government at all levels to meet policy, service delivery and public accountability purposes, to enhance the capacity of individuals to be active citizens and to facilitate innovation and economic activity .
There is a difference in what is perceived as appropriate transparency and accessibility for private citizens and what constitutes appropriate accessibility for commercial activity. The basic principles within the Open Data consultation are sound but perhaps need more nuanced interpretation for these two groups. RICS would certainly encourage commercial and public task accessibility to Open Data and recognition of its ability to stimulate innovation and economic activity.
As already mentioned RICS members constitute a broad church of current and future ‘Open Data’ users and clients of PDC. Initially we would like to see the PDC release data without trying to second guess private industry on how and in what format it will be needed. The residential property sector for example has often been a leader in taking freely available public datasets (Land Registry transaction indexes for example) and then ‘adding value’ by combining this data with other property related datasets such as crime, school, valuation and transport statistics to create a client oriented commercial product. We would also state that the ‘public task’ aspect of the PDC needs to be carefully considered and how an inappropriate ‘charging’ mechanism might potentially inhibit private business usage.
However the PDC has the potential to create much more extensive and cross government department commercially viable data products than previously envisaged. Within the property sector, the bringing together of Ordnance Survey, Land Registry and Valuation Office Agency (with the possible addition of Environment Agency, Planning and other types of economic landscape datasets) could create very useful dataset ‘mash-ups’ highlighting the physical, social, environmental as well as the economic landscape of local, regional and national areas.
RICS has often found that the ‘economic’ landscape is the least understood but is the most important from a development point of view – further information can found on our releases on ‘Green Infrastructure’ which highlights the economic juxtaposition of value, planning and geography and the forthcoming release on ‘financial viability in planning’. These can be found @ www.rics.org/land
In conclusion we would reiterate our support for the formation of the Transparency Board, the formation of the Public data Corporation and the guiding principles of ‘Open Data’.
Yours faithfully
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