This document discusses standards for sharing and linking open data in local government. It describes ESD's standards model, which defines semantics and syntax. The standards include core reference data like companies and legislation that local authorities can use. Lists from the standards are published as linked open data and can be queried. Examples show how the lists define services, metrics, and other data. The standards aim to improve data sharing and reuse across local government.

1. www.esd.org
supported by the
Local Government
Association
a local government
initiative
sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
Standards
Standards for sharing and
linking open data
Nicki Gill and Tim Adams

2. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Standards Model
esd’s standards
define what we
call things = the
semantics
Seven layers of standards
Peterborough’s
project has some
work on the format
of inventories &
datasets = syntax

3. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Core reference data
Companies
Legislation
Local authorities(and more)
Administrative
geographies
Services, circumstances,
Metrics, ...
Finance

4. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
The lists from
standards.esd.org.uk

5. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Example of how the
lists are used
See publications on Using Lists in
local government

6. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Local Government
Business Model

7. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Open Linked Data
• Lists published under Open Government
Licence
• Available as Linked Data
• Can query via SPARQL
• Every list and term has a URI, which:
– Precisely defines something (eg service, function, metric type)
– ‘Resolves’ in a web browser to show properties which define it
and link it to other things
• Follow these rules for publishing

8. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Some of the lists
Group by council
function
Group from customer
perspective
Categorise metrics
Categorisemetrics
Define breakdowns
(= data dimensions)

9. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Relevance to BIS
Breakthrough Projects
• Kent - linking services to legislation.gov.uk
URIs to define council legal duties to deliver
services and hold records
• Cheshire East - defining non-official
geographies (eg town centres) as open data
against which data for many metric types will
be published
• Peterborough and Redbridge - defining
standard for inventories of datasets index by
service and function to be used by
data.gov.uk

10. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
General rules
All projects should:
– Reference datasets and data items against
national core reference data (including
esd lists) where possible
– Comply with outputs of Peterborough and
Redbridge work so your data can be
harvested by data.gov.uk
– Share your formats and vocabularies to
encourage re-use

11. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
More information
Standards: standards.esd.org.uk
Help: support@esd.org.uk
Knowledge Hub Group for Peterborough work:
https://knowledgehub.local.gov.uk/c/my_places/view?
groupId=11340836
Contacts:

12. sharing nationally
to improve services
locally
a local government
initiative
Inventories and
aggregators of local data
Common inventory formats for
harvesting
Common dataset formats for
combing similar data from
different councils
Common vocabularies to
identify similar datasets and
formats (Services List +
Functions List)