Post: 7 May 2013
I’ve started a spreadsheet in Google Docs as an attempt to track on an ongoing basis all of the officially recognised and active boards, panels and advisory groups that meet to discuss and implement UK transparency and open data policy.
The spreadsheet includes a timeline from the 2010 General Election to present, with links to any published minutes.
A few of the groups (e.g. the Local Public Data Panel and the Location Council) were set up under the previous Government. However the majority follow from initiatives announced in PM Cameron’s letters of May 2010 and July 2011 and in last year’s Open Data White Paper.
In principle, UK policy on transparency and open data is led by the Cabinet Office and propagated through government via Sector Boards. Sector Boards take as a reference point the Public Data Principles drawn up by the Public Sector Transparency Board.
Data.gov.uk has a guide that explains the relationships between most of the various groups.
According to the latest tally (in a self-assessment report released by the Cabinet Office last month) the UK so far has “11 active Sector Boards in Transport, Social Mobility, Health and Social Care, Tax, Welfare, Research, Local Public Data Panel, Location Council and Criminal Justice."
Additionally FCO, BIS and DfE have "established internal panels that replicate the Sector Board terms of reference”. Defra has also recently established an internal Sector Board and appointed an external data user.
It’s a bit difficult to identify all of those 11 “active Sector Boards” but I think this is most of the list:
The other two may (or may not) be the International Development Sector Transparency Board announced by DfID in December and DCLG’s Public Data and Transparency Programme Board.
Many of the Sector Boards have not released any minutes. The situation at DCLG is particularly murky. DCLG’s website suggests the Public Data and Transparency Programme Board might have been disbanded at the end of 2012. The Local Public Data Panel has not published any minutes since May 2012 and its terms of reference indicate it was to be wound down; however based on subsequent passing references I suspect it has only adopted a lower profile.
The lack of output from the Department for Education is also noticeable, given that it is one of the “key delivery departments” flagged for special attention in the PM's letter of July 2011.
In general the availability of minutes from Sector Boards seems to mirror actual progress in releasing open data, with Transport and Health running ahead of other departments.
Photo credit: Open_Data_stickers.jpg by Jonathan Gray (CC0 1.0)