This document discusses open data and lessons learned from open data initiatives. It outlines the triple objectives of open data as more transparent government, improved public services, and new economic and social value. It then provides several case studies that demonstrate significant returns on investment from open data, in areas such as transportation, healthcare, addressing, weather, and more. The document concludes by discussing lessons learned from open data projects, including the importance of leadership, managing expectations, incremental delivery, engagement, and focusing on high-value data.

1. Open Data: its value and lessons learned
Andrew Stott
UK Transparency Board
formerly Director, data.gov.uk
@dirdigeng
andrew.stott@dirdigeng.com
03 Feb 2014

2. Triple Objectives
Objectives of Open Data
More Transparent Government
Improved public services
New Economic and Social Value
2

3. Triple Objectives
Objectives of Open Data
More Transparent Government
Improved public services
New Economic and Social Value
3

4. 4

5. 5

6. Open Data as a Transport Investment in London
 ~500 Applications
(mobile, web, others)
 ~5000 people involved
in “app industry”
 As a transport project
alone, evaluated by
usual economic criteria:
ROI = 58:1
 Transport For London
have stopped making
their own apps
6

7. Anonymised medical prescription data
 Used experts in
 Health
 Data Analytics
 Analysed 35m
data records
 8 weeks
 £200m+/yr
savings
 Repeatable
 Could scale to
£1.5bn
7

8. National Information Infrastructure
8

9. Denmark: Open Address Data
Period
Benefits
Costs
Return on
Investment
2004-09
>€60m
(including
setup)
~€2m
22:1
2010
(steady
state)
~€0.2m 70:1
~€14.0m
9

10. Commercial Meteorology in the US and
Europe in 2004
The size of the US and EU economies are approximately the same
United States (1)
Europe (2)
(open)
(closed/charged)
$ 400-700 million
$ 30-50 million
Number of Firms
400
30
Number of
Employees
4000
300
$1,929m
$144m
Gross Receipts
Annual Value of
Weather Risk
Contracts (3)
Sources: Weiss 2004, using Commercial Weather Services Association (1), Meteoconsult
(2), Weather Risk Management Association (3)
10

11. UK Weather
Public
Weather
Service now
Open Data:
 Costs
£83m/yr
 Total
benefits
£614m/yr

12. Cadastral data
estate
agents/
realtors
Financial
services
builders and
other local
services
12

13. 13

14. $930m business from Open Data
 Weather for 1m
points
 60 years of crop
yield data
 14 TB of soil
data
 Company
formed in 2006
 Sold to
Monsanto
October 2013 for
$930m cash
14

15. Roadworks Data
Councils:
 Cost £0.7m a year
 Benefits £6.3m a
year
 Fiscal ROI 9:1
Overall value
 Wider benefits of
additional £19m a
year.
 Overall ROI 28:1
15

16. 16

17. 17

18. 18

19. Evidence base for EU Open Data Directive
 Open Gov Data in EU would
‒ increase business activity by up to €40 Bn/yr
‒ have total benefits up to €140 Bn/yr
 Open Data was reused 10x-100x more than
charged-for data
 Lowering charges may attract new types of reusers, in particular SMEs.
 Costs appear to increase very little: in fact, they
may eventually decrease
All economic analysis and case studies
point the same way
19

20. Deloitte POPSIS Case Studies
Case
Data Type
Country
Increase
BEV
Mapping
AT
Downloads: +200% to +7,000%
DECA
Addresses
DK
Uers: +10,000%
Destatis
Statistics
DE
Users: +1800%
Downloads: +800%
IGNCNIG
Mapping
ES
Volume: +200%
Users: +200%
KNMI
Weather
NL
Users: +1000%
Met.No
Weather
NO
Users: +3000%
Spanish
Cadaster
Cadastral
ES
Downloads: +800% to +1900%
20

21. Case Study: Statistics Germany
2004
Pay per use
2010
Free of charge
110,000 EUR
0 EUR
Premium
analyses
78,000 EUR
152,000 EUR
Downloads
Standard
Accounts
Premium
Accounts
130,300
1,800
1,093,000
3,000
36
69
Online
publications
Online sales
21

22. Case Study: Statistics Germany
Users: +1800% Downloads: +800%
22

23. Government can be an Open Data user too
Greater Manchester estimated £6.5m
savings from finding and using its own
data more easily
23

24. EU Inspire Directive on Geospatial Data
One Government reported fiscal ROI 8:1
in first 4 years, plus wider benefits
24

25. British Columbia Open Data
 Government
itself is #1
user of its
data
 33% of
downloads
come from
within BC
Government
25

26. Measuring Benefits is not easy
 Benefits take time to emerge
 Most benefits are from Open Data plus
innovation
 Difficult to measure consumer surplus, but
that’s where more of the value often is
 Difficult to value public sector benefits
 Benefits not predictable
 “National Information Infrastructure” is a good
source of benefits
26

27. Triple Objectives
Objectives of Open Data
More Transparent Government
Improved public services
New Economic and Social Value
27

28. Performance of individual schools
28

29. Performance of individual hospitals
Patient
ratings
12+ Weeks
MRSA-free
Blood
clots
2 recent
MRSA
Low
Mortality
Good C-Diff
record
29

30. Performance of local police and courts
30

31. Open Data used to drive Citizen Engagement
Accessible data on crime
It’s very local
Local team
How YOU
can get
involved
Local police
Twitter feed
Telephone, website, Facebook and Youtube ….
Attract
Inform
Engage
Action
31

32. “
“Police.uk is a success story”
“I am constantly afraid of becoming a victim of
crime, but this website has made me more
relaxed now that I know what has happened
and where. Crimes are not quite as rife in my
area as I imagined. I also feel that I have some
sort of link now with my local police. Well done”
“The new 'Draw Your Own
Area' function is a vast
improvement which will
allow regular comparisons
to be made about an entire
town or village.”
Site feedback: 70% of respondents
agree website is easy to use whilst
66% agree information is easy to
understand
“It's just great to have the
transparency because it will
encourage me and others to report
crime because the result of doing so
is now visual rather than notional.”
“Local information for interest, and
details of who my local officers are. It's
good to feel involved and informed. I
think this will help us all take more
responsibility for our own areas”
£300,000 set-up, £150,000/year to run
Over 56 million
visits since
January 2011
33% of adults
aware of and 11%
have used the
site
2/3 of users say
they’ll return to
the site to see if
crime goes up
and down
2/5 of users say
they’re now more
likely to take
steps to improve
their personal
32
safety

33. Triple Objectives
Objectives of Open Data
More Transparent Government
Improved public services
New Economic and Social Value
33

34. Is My Money Being Spent Well?
34

35. Organisational Transparency
Pay
Responsibil
Where the person
is in the structure
Contact details
35

36. International Corporate Transparency
36

37. First 4 years of data.gov.uk: Lessons Learned
 Over 10,000 datasets
 37 GB of geo data
 Public Data Principles
 Open Government
Licence
 Transparency of
salaries, spending,
contracts and tenders
 Four site versions, each
in response to user
feedback
37

38. Leadership inside and outside the Organisation
38

39. Demand from business and citizens
39

40. Clear, common, licensing approach
40

41. Standards
41

42. Make sure data is re-usable
42

43. Ensure Privacy of Personal Data
43

44. Focus on data on things that people care about
44

45. It’s not just about new data
Scope for “Open Data” also includes data
previously “published” but …
 in non-reusable format
 with restricted licence
 only aimed at specialist groups
 only for payment
 only in response to requests
 difficult to find
data.gov.uk contains a lot of data which
nobody knew was already published
45

46. Handling the concerns of data owners
“People hug their database, they don't want to
let it go. You have no idea the number of
excuses people come up with to hang onto
their data and not give it to you, even though
you've paid for it as a taxpayer.”
– Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
46

47. Release data people want
47

48. Manage expectations, prepare for mistakes
“We’re making a small start next
week. But eventually, it’s going to
make a big difference.”
“The information we’re publishing
next week won’t be perfect, and
I’m sure there’ll be some mistakes.
But I want to get on with it.”
UK Prime Minister 29 May 2010
48

49. Delivery Incrementally
49

50. Identify datasets not yet released
50

51. Ensure continuing conformance
51

52. Not all Government data is accurate
52

53. Data Quality
 Release of data will
reveal issues of data
quality
 Surprisingly little
criticism
 Celebrate greater
checking of data!
 Use as stimulus to
 Measure
 Prioritise
 Improve
53

54. Promote Use of Data
54

55. Continuously engage with developers
Photos: @memespring,
@MadLabUK, @paul_clarke
55

56. Open Data Ecosystem
56

57. UK Open Data Institute
 Develop capability of UK
businesses to exploit value of
Open Data
 Engage developers/small
businesses to build Open Data
supply chains and commercial
outlets
 Help public sector use its own
data more effectively
 Ensure academic research in
Open Data technologies
57

58. UK Open Data Institute
 Running ~12 months
 £200m/yr savings identified
 5 startups incubated, 6 courses launched,
4 hackathons
 27 private-sector company paying members
 Over £2m of private sector funding secured
in 6 mths
 1,500 visitors to London space – and
provides “neutral meeting space” for
government and entrepreneurs
58

59. … and the biggest lesson of all
Overcome obstacles
practically
by doing,
not debating
59

60. Discussion?
60

61. End
61

62. 62