Tag Archives: open data

Light and shadows: the RHI scandal and the temptations of secrecy

Posted on by

worthy

The RHI inquiry in Northern Ireland has led to concerns about a record ‘void’ that has left room for doubt and suspicion. Ben Worthy argues that the lack of a record might aid political deniability, but means that politicians also can’t be truly exonerated when accused of wrongdoing.

Marilyn Stathern, in her famous article on the ‘Tyranny of transparency’, asked: ‘what does visibility conceal’?  While openness can shed light on some areas, it can also create shadows and shade to hide in. One of the biggest fears for transparency campaigners is that openness will create an opposite and equal reaction. Instead of letting in the light, could freedom of information laws, open meetings or open data lead to officials and politicians trying to hide from them, or even fight them? Could it create what’s called a ‘chilling effect’, whereby officials and politicians bury their decisions elsewhere?

Finding any firm evidence for resistance, avoidance or concealment is notoriously difficult. It could take place in numerous ways, whether avoiding questions or requests, keeping records and decisions off paper, or using non-official emails or networks like WhatsApp. It’s hard to prove a negative, that something isn’t happening and, if avoidance done well, it should stay hidden. Only the most incompetent or inept are likely to be caught.

A few concrete examples have surfaced. We have had flashes of an apparent ‘chilling’ in the Trump White House and closer to home with Michael Gove using a private email address for public business in 2012 (as urged by his then adviser Dominic Cummings). More worrying was the evidence in Scotland in 2018 that some parts of government were engaged in ‘deliberate delaying tactics and requests being blocked or refused for tenuous reasons’. But are these isolated cases or the tip of an iceberg of systematic resistance? Studies have come to varying conclusions and a select committee in 2012 concluded that there was no firm evidence.

However, it now looks as though transparency campaigners’ worst nightmare has come to pass in Northern Ireland’s RHI scandal, as detailed in Sam McBride’s new book Burned. The RHI scandal, as the later Inquiry FAQ explains, concerns ‘the non-domestic renewable heat incentive… a financial incentive for businesses to move away from non-renewable sources of energy’. However, the FAQ goes on, ‘how the scheme came about in the form in which it was adopted, how it has been operated and the possible financial consequences of the scheme have become the source of considerable public concern’. You can see the background here and a timeline. Continue reading →

Being Open About Data

Posted on by

The Finnish Institute in London has recently completed a five-month research project on the British open data policies. The report looks at how the open data ecosystem has emerged in the UK and what lessons can be drawn from the British experiences. The year 2012 will be a big year for open data in Finland, and this report also partly aims at further facilitating the development of open knowledge in Finland.
In short, the key arguments that the research makes can be listed as follows:

  • The key to securing the benefits of open data is the quality of user engagement
  • Open data and its objectives should be addressed as a part of the freedom-of-information continuum
  • The decision to emphasise the release of expenditure data was not ideal: governments do not know best what kind of data people want to have and should aim at releasing it all
  • Leadership, trust and IT knowledge are crucial, not only for political leadership but within organisations too
  • The social and democratic impacts of open data are still unclear and in future there is a need for sector-specific research

After a series of interviews and analysis of government documents it became evident that open data is not as apolitical an initiative as many may assume it to be. There is a long history of politicised debate on transparency and public spending behind the initiative. Open data is argued to be a good example of a targeted transparency policy, where proactive release of information is hoped to help in achieving certain political goals. The decision about which information should be released first is after all a political process.

In addition, we must realise the difference between transparency and democracy-oriented goals that are usually associated with the freedom-of-information movement and the technology and innovation-oriented goals of the open-data movement. In the end of the day, the overall value of transparency is not something that should be measured primarily in financial profits.

After a survey of all English local councils and a series of interviews, it seems that public sector data providers are supportive towards the idea of data transparency itself, but very cautious towards the means of achieving it, especially the initiative of releasing the data of expenditure over £500 in local government. Many of the respondents feel that the data released lack information value and due to that the general interest towards data has been minimal.

Open data is applied in various ways with lots of small-scale success stories available, mostly in the form of mobile-phone or web applications. These services make everyday life of citizens a tiny bit easier, and when accumulated they may result in significant economic benefits. However, the open-data community has also been vocal about the potential positive impacts on democracy. These impacts are significantly harder to identify and need much more research in order to produce comprehensive and reliable results.

The report argues that the applicability of data is effectively linked to the initial objectives of open data. The value of open data is built on an uncertain variable and on how people use it – it is difficult to form a single “one size fits all” model, to measure the value of applicability. Data has value only in its use, and at this time it seems that the best way to facilitate its use is to further engage those organised civil society groups who have resources and will to use data with real public-service interests in mind.

Economic impacts can be measured relatively easily with the current methods, but the possible changes in our society due to digitisation of the core infrastructures and the abilities of citizens to manage their lives within it pose challenges for the legitimate and democratic transparency regime. In the future, it is more important to focus on the normative side of open data and on its potential impacts on democracy. There is a risk of creating a hollow mantra of open data improving the level of democracy without any evidence provided. However, the potential for great improvement in democratic accountability is there.

Truly democratic transparency requires more than just the release of open data. It needs citizens who can see that their interests are treated equally in society. If it is hoped that open data will provide the catalyst for this, then the thresholds for access, use and interpretation of data need to be as low as possible. In order to achieve this, the data producers must possess a certain level of ICT knowledge to implement the system so that it is both simple enough to use and sophisticated enough to be able to manage information flow comprehensively – knowledge which is often lacking. This should not be an excuse not to release data, however, but a wake-up call for both data providers and the open-data community alike.

The final report “Being Open About Data – analysis of the UK open data policies and applicability of data” can be read and downloaded here.

Antti Halonen is a PhD candidate at University of Helsinki and a Fellow at the Finnish Institute in London. He is the author of “Being Open About Data – Analysis of the UK open data policies and applicability of open data”.

To Be Or Not To Be: Will FOI be Extended?

Posted on by

Should the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) be extended to include private bodies doing public work? The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) argued it should in a recent report on PFI projects:

Transparency on the full costs and benefits of PFI projects to both the public and private sectors has been obscured… commercial confidentiality should not restrict the ability of the public, Parliament and decision makers to access information. Freedom of information should be extended to private companies providing public services.

This is not the first time the PAC has called for private companies to be subject to FOI. In July it recommended that Network Rail, currently outside of FOI, should be covered. Nor are they alone. The Local Public Data Panel, a group of experts overseeing transparency and Open Data reformed across local government, warned of an erosion of public access due to the contracting out of services: ‘Public rights of access to information should not disappear as a result of increasingly porous boundaries between public and private bodies delivering services.’

Extending coverage to private companies running public services, such as rail or road providers, is on the face of it logical and popular.  However, the devil lies in the detail and in the persuading of companies to do it, particularly now. But, while politicians prevaricate, some information is creeping out by the back door.

Most laws cover only information held by authorities, which can include some information held about work done by private bodies. Many companies are happy to provide information but not all, as our research on FOI and local government shows. Yet, willing or not, FOI only reaches so far and large ‘gaps’ in transparency appear with, for example, public prisons covered by FOI laws but private prisons not. Big society reforms and more contracting out of public services raises the possibility that these gaps will widen further.

Only one FOI law in the world currently wholly covers private bodies, South Africa’s Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000, though it’s not clear if or how it works. The Indian Right to Information Act 2005 also extends to previously public utility bodies now in private hands, though this was due to a ruling by its appeal body rather than by government action.

In the UK, Gordon Brown was the first to suggest extension of FOI to private providers in 2007. After several years of consideration it was decided to cautiously extend it to only a limited number of bodies. In 2010, the issue of extension surfaced again when new Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg aired the possibility that FOI could cover a wide variety of new bodies from Network Rail to utility companies. The Conservatives had also pressured the previous government to cover the nationalised bank Northern Rock.

Meanwhile, over the border in Scotland, the Scottish government began to consult on its own extension to selection of private bodies under its separate FOI Act. Again, following a long process, the final decision was to not do so.

Why have so few governments tried to extend coverage? As theUKand Scottish experience shows, even discussing extension can be a time consuming business, requiring a great deal of consultation and consideration.

More importantly, the arguments against extending FOI can be persuasive ones. Businesses argue that they can’t afford it (‘it’s too expensive’) and don’t need to (‘it’s unnecessary as we publish most of this already’). Here is the list of reasons for not extending FOI cited by the Scottish government, which would probably be enough to give even the most pro-openness politician pause for thought:

‘No compelling evidence of a problem or of unmet demand for information.

Wide concern about the potential resource implications and administrative burden of extension – particularly in the current economic climate

Most contracts stipulate co-operation between contractor and authority regarding information requests. Extension to contractors could be deemed to be a ‘discriminatory change in law’ – with costs passed to the public sector

Potential issues arising from differing regimes operating within theUK– including competitive disadvantage

Concerns that coverage would impact on private business engaging with the public sector and that resulting costs would be passed on to public authorities

That extension would be contrary to Scottish Government’s aim of reducing unnecessary regulation’

Interestingly, other developments and innovations may mean some level of transparency, through FOI and now Open Data reforms, may slowly ‘creep up’ on private companies. In Ireland, for example, it was recently decided that the Ango-Irish bank could be subject to Environmental Information Regulation requests (an equivalent FOI for environmental matters). In the UK the Ministry of Defence has begun ‘naming and shaming’ apparently poorly performing contractors. At local government level, one high profile joint venture between IBM and a set of public bodies has explicitly committed itself to FOI and many authorities are determined to make FOI access part of future contracts. In parallel, sites such as Openly Local allow the public to find out more about, for example, councils and their suppliers.

This ‘creep’ is no replacement for full FOI coverage but the whole issue of extension leaves politicians in a dilemma. They wish to hand the public more power to hold public services to account but are reluctant to upset business or add any regulatory burden, especially now. Will the onward move of transparency and Open Data leave them with no choice?

Academics FOI’led?

Posted on by

One thing that becomes more clear about FOI (and Open Data) as it settles into British society is to expect the unexpected (which, helpfully, gives us lots to study, and in turn, we hope our research helps). In all honesty, would anyone have predicted a ‘zombie’ parade on the streets of Leicester after an FOI request to the local council?

One new development with FOI is a small but growing collection of case law about FOI and universities, which is challenging some basic notions about what academic publishing is and how intellectual property works. Peer review is how academic work is challenged and critiqued, right? Except now, access to data is now a right for anyone. A ‘staggering injustice’ is one academic’s take on a decision by the Information Commissioner regarding his intellectual property. What’s also becoming clearer is some of the premises about FOI – what’s it for, who’s meant to benefit – are being challenged by what’s happening with universities:

  • FOI is about the helping little the guy: except when Tobacco giant Philip Morris uses FOI to get hold of information regarding teenage smokers.

What seems to be happening is a clash between FOI’s broad goals and the unique (and rapidly changing) realties of the university environment. They are multi-million pound institutions with networks that stretch across the globe. Academics share data everyday; peer review challenges ideas. They are in direct competition with each other for students and for research funding.

A lot has been written in recent months this topic, from various angles: epidemiologists in The Lancet have espoused the virtues of sharing data for better public health; FOI advocate Heather Brooke has defended Philip Morris’ requests to Stirling University; the Commons’ Science and Technology committee urged guidance be drawn up to help academics cope with FOI following the climate-gate affair (the ICO has just done so); David Colquhoun fought against the teaching of a BSc in homeopathy at University of Central Lancashire using FOI; George Monbiot has outlined the manifold problems with dissemination via expensive academic journals; Princeton, Harvard and MIT have adopted an open-access policies; Jon Baldwin has questioned why Universities in the UK are covered by FOI at all.

We’re beginning a new project looking at the relationship between universities (and other High Education institutions), academics and researchers, and FOI/EIR. One side of the project is going to look at how academics make use of requests themselves (we’ll blog about this soon), but the other is FOI’s impact on universities. Going beyond the headlines of ‘climate-gate’, we’re hoping to find out what’s really going on. Are these cases one-offs? Or the tip of an iceberg?

We’re asking if FOI  has changed…

  • the policies or practices of universities? Or the relationships with their students, funders and competitors?
  • the way they bid for contracts, or the kind of information they proactively release?
  • what researchers chose to study? Or how they are able to publish and personally gain from their research?
  • the mindset of researchers when it comes to sharing data and results?

We hope to be able to provide some answers to the above questions. We’re going to be interviewing academics and requesters, looking at the case law and analysing the requests themselves. We’ll be adding more information to our project page over the course of the next year. Keep an eye on us (we are, after all, covered by FOI!)

Open Data Consultation Launched

Posted on by

The government has launched a consultation today on Open Data and how to move forward the transparency agenda by encouraging ‘push’ (pro-active release) and ‘pull’ (stronger rights for access to data). The consultation covers a wide range of areas

  • Proactive: how to ensure ICTs systems can publish data easily and make pro-active publication a ‘default’ setting
  • Costs: possibly raising the cost ceiling for FOI requests (a ceiling of £1000, instead of £600 is suggested)
  • Changing mechanisms: giving the ICO more power, creating a new right to appeal for datasets and limiting internal review times

The paper also contains two interesting annexes on evidence of impact and draft principles.

For a brief summary see here and a discussion thread here. This appears to form part of a further push of the transparency agenda, alongside other initiatives. David Cameron recently said the reforms had now moved to ‘phase two’ from publishing core data to publishing more about public services and how they perform.

‘If our transparency focus over the past 12 months has been to open up core central government data in areas such as spending, our priority over the next year will be to release new data on the performance of public services. This revolution in government transparency will make it easier than ever before for the public to make informed choices between providers and hold government to account for the performance of key public services’.