WRITTEN ON June 6th, 2008 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Political engagement, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, What do we want?

We can’t say who said what or where but this week we had a pretty high-powered get-together about the Power of Information agenda (the exciting challenge for government to support and work with the existing innovation of citizens, and free up state-generated data). You’ll wish you had been there…The Power of Information Task Force announced by Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson MP and chaired by former LibDem MP (now government affairs director at Cisco) Richard Allan assumes that innovation around information, along the MySociety model, is a good thing. So it will create examples, and try to reduce the cost of entry (both financial and in terms of complexity). We currently see an “old model” – in both public and private sector – of vertically integrated data, coupled with the problems of “shiny front-end syndrome”. Instead we should see data, as we now see software, as a reusable component. We may need to sort out the API but the core message is: “Give us the data raw, and give it to us now.”

The expense will be in maintaining the data and its quality. Google spent a lot of money to make things look easy. Is the end use key? We decided data needs to be “fit for purposes” (plural, and not necessarily pre-specified). In some circumstances (eg mapping, Land Registry) integrity is absolutely key.

Policymakers recognise legitimate concerns in the trading funds, and it’s not fair always to kick Ordnance Survey. We still need to complete the all-important political debate on cost: the trading funds need to operate, and there is a cost to starting this journey to the brave new world where the information is ‘freed’ in order to create greater social and economic good. Whichever way the fixed costs of the trading funds that depend on digital data are met, they need sustainability, long-term planning (eg 10-20 year contracts) and to cover the costs of change.

We can ask “what would these trading funds look like if we started from scratch today?” but there’s not necessarily a clear answer. They’re highly regulated monopolies trading in a commodity – digital data – which has changed other industries beyond recognition. Their pricing structures date back decades, but they surely should not and cannot be immune from change? One proposition would be to privatise and regulate them, and to regulate information just as we have telecoms.

Moving our discussion on from issues of state-generated to user-generated data, we ask how government and individual public servants can interact with social networking. If it’s where people are, it doesn’t make sense for government to steer clear. But currently, what does the FCO staffer with access to the right information do about “Lonely Planet b*ll*cks” (ie misleading travel advice on a social networking site)? Well, nothing if they want to abide by their current Ts&Cs. This has to change.

First, the availability of live data feeds (XML, RSS, or just links) rather than posting static data solves the problem of government advice being up-to-date. Second, the question of the civil service blogging code, while it will never fit onto a sheet of A4, is at least being addressed and should be out by summer recess. It should let public servants offer factually accurate help with confidence. People may rip up or deface public sector information when it appears on paper; government shouldn’t be put off by the fact that such activity is more visible in the on-line world.

There’s a reason to engage just from a listening perspective: “the hive” can point to where improvement is needed, whether it’s the 100,000 driver update forms downloaded from DirectGov, which then get posted back and then re-keyed at DVLA; or the flood of NetMums asking why registering a baby can’t just happen at the hospital. It makes sense to listen and react to this. But there is a pervasive culture that the authoritative government services, such as DirectGov, should have nothing to do with the shabby and chaotic world of social networking. Despite this, DirectGov has chosen to offer the technology for self-help forums for the high traffic public service sites, but as the decision to use it rests with policy people in each department, it is not being quickly adopted.

And indeed government participation might be viewed askance. If discussion on a weightwatchers forum triggered official guidance on the calorific content of a chocolate Hobnob, this might be akin to a similar conversation on the street attracting a tap on the shoulder from a Food Standards Agency rep who “couldn’t help overhearing your conversation…” Is this what people want? Government Adwords commenting on the legality or desirability of whatever we email each other about or search the web for? Clay Shirky’s observation that some online publishing must be understood as private rather than broadcast communication is a critical distinction for government to make in this context.

That said, search is a problem. Pan government search is poor (for Power of Information, see for example http://www.directionlessgov.com/results/?as_q=power+of+information ); Google’s 90% share is a near-monopoly, and its incentive may be to show for example government sites lower down so government pays for more Adwords. This may need to be regulated; meanwhile we see Google beefing up its government liaison team and improving its internal appeal process on listings.

We await more Power of Information announcements before summer recess. On the user-generated data question, there’s a need to find more examples of interesting things that are happening and to spread the word. The majority of senior civil servants clearly need urgent help in understanding this new world, and when and how to work with it to achieve policy aims; it potentially offers a whole new set of channels and levers, but – watch out! – they don’t work like the old ones did. Newham found engaging with wikipedia a quick, cheap and powerful way of getting the right factual information into the public domain. What else is going on out there? In the meantime it’s quite clear the rethinking of trading funds is entirely serious. All options are on the table, for now at least, and it’s open season for an alternative model. Let’s learn from Auntie Beeb: public data licence fee, anyone?