Government Transparency Measures Fail To Impress

The British government has been making concerted efforts in recent months to appear open and transparent, even setting up a Public Sector Transparency Board to ensure that public data is freely available. However, public opinion indicates that there is still significant work to be done before the government achieves its open data goal.

More than two thirds of UK citizens do not believe they have sufficient access to government data about themselves, according to a new study by Informatica, and 76 percent want more access to public sector information.

In the survey of 1,000 UK consumers, 68 percent said they did not believe the public sector data  currently available to them provided any real value. Meanwhile, over half said they found the data confusing, and 59 percent stated that they did not trust the accuracy of the information.

Education a priority

“People expect to find the information they need online to support informed decision making for personal matters, such as where to send their children to school, but without the ability to trust this data, its purpose is void,” said Charles Race, vice president of Northern Europe at Informatica. “The government’s proposal to create greater transparency within the public sector is an admirable initiative. However it is important to ask whether the practical implications of what is being promised have been taken fully into account.”

When asked what type of public sector data they would most benefit from, 62 percent of respondents said education was the most important, ranking it ahead of both financial services and public healthcare. Access to Ofsted reports, location and catchment area, course portfolios and specialist subjects would help parents make more informed decisions about which school would best suit their family’s requirements, said Informatica.

However, for many people, the way this information is presented is a major barrier. The government needs, not only to make data available, but to make sure it is also accessible.

“Bringing together information from across hundreds of government bodies and departments is no simple matter,” said Race. “It is an immense undertaking for any organisation. And if not managed correctly, these complex government data sets, packed full of information that needs to be updated in real time to maintain their accuracy and value, simply present a sluggish and frustrating experience for users.”

Open government

From the beginning, the coalition government has emphasised its commitment to freeing up information on public spending and opening up more government data to the general public. Back in June, the Cabinet Office published the salary of every civil servant earning over £150,000 online, claiming that greater transparency would enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account.

HM Treasury has also published the second batch of expenditure data from its COINS (Combined Online Information System) database, which contains details of public spending across Whitehall, on 15 June. The raw dataset, contains between 10 million and 15 million lines of data, but is available in user-friendly web format via a dedicated online portal, RA.Pid Gateway.

Earlier in the year, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, opened a consultation on the government’s open data plans. The minister invited opinion on the principles for implementing the government’s transparency commitments across the public sector, as one of its first agreed priorities.

“We want transparency to become an absolutely core part of every bit of government business,” said Maude at th time. “That is why we have asked some of the country’s and the world’s greatest experts in this field to help us take this work forward quickly here in central government and across the whole of the public sector.”