On 06/02/2013 11:12, Javier Ruiz wrote:
"If you want my suggestions as to what to focus on for more open data, I
think that, rather than pushing for more even more data from
organisations (such as the OS) which have already gone a long way down
the open data route,"
Just to be clear, the current email campaign is targeting Michael
Fallon, responsible for the Shareholder Executive, and is about the PAF
and Royal Mail, although OS would be impacted by the wider call for an
open national address database.
The immediate issue is that BIS is seriously considering privatising the
PAF along with Royal Mail. Should the ODUG take home the message that
the UK "civic hacker" community thinks this is not an issue?
What I would actually like is a well-constructed, consistently formatted
national building location database. I'd like that to be open data. I
don't think that the PAF is a candidate for being that database, not
least because it doesn't include all the many buildings which don't
receive postal mail (such as churches, village halls, etc).
I think that a postal address database is a bit of a red herring in this
context, because it's really only useful for delivering post and can
even be positively misleading when used in other contexts. So, yes, from
my perspective[1] I'd be perfectly happy for Royal Mail to take the PAF
with them into privatisation. What I'd then like to see is the
appropriate government department (not sure which it would be, but,
given that the source of the data will be local authorities, probably
the DCLG) take on responsibility for creating and maintaining a national
geocoded database of structures. Alternatively, something derived from
the Land Registry database would probably be equally useful.
The ODUG is hosted at the Cabinet Office, but it is attached to the Data
Strategy Board, which is a bastard project currently living at BIS but
fathered by Francis Maude. Its current official remit is to deal with
the trading funds under the Shareholder Executive, in particular the
Public Data Group. There are discussions about making it a central point
of for all of government data policy, but it could go the other way and
simply die away. Justice and EA are clear candidates. Justice has a
transparency board and a strategy for data releases. EA, which I agree
has very important data, I think is way behind and will be a hard nut to
crack.
I've already come up against the EA's reluctance to give anything away -
see, for example my FOI request at
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/watercourses_designated_as_main -
and elsewhere I've taken the approach of bending their rules and waiting
for them to complain.
[1] FWIW, my perspective on open data comes from three sources. In my
day job, I work for an online retailer and we use, among other things,
the PAF database for verifying addresses. Outside work, I do a lot of
hacking with open data and use it as the basis for my hobby of writing
websites! Finally, I'm also a local councillor and am often frustrated
by the lack of useful geolocation data associated with planning
applications, especially those for which a postal address has not yet
been allocated (because the building hasn't yet been built) or never has
been allocated (because it's a community building or church hall or
whatever that doesn't get post).
We use, and pay for, the PAF in the first of those. I don't think it
would be helpful to me in either of the others.
Mark
--
http://mark.goodge.co.uk
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