Public service consultation processes (was Open data workshop, 29 July)

On 27/07/2010, at 12:42 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:

>  Officials should be given the discretion to
> seek input from outside their departments to advise their minister as they
> see fit.

Tim's right in a point of fact here. Officials do have this discretion.

> From the outside, it looks like this is a practical workshop about nuts &
> bolts. For one, there's lots of bespoke software in government agencies. I'm
> sure many data management systems were not designed to have an API open to
> the world. Those kinds of discussions don't need to be held in a fully
> transparent manner.

I agree. The govt folk are trying stuff. Let them and support them where
necessary.

Let's not bag the people in government who have a clue - help them to work with
others, and validate their position to their superiors.

Disclaimer - I'm one of the invitees. I look at it as giving free consultancy.

Colin

On Tue, July 27, 2010 12:42 pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
> On 27 July 2010 12:23, <email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> But I am concerned about the process here. It's quite legitimate for
>> private individuals to run invite-only events (Foo, for example), and
>> for
>> private companies to do so (Microsoft Open Govt), but IMHO it's a
>> different ballgame when government is involved, especially (ironically)
>> when the topic is open govt or open govt data.
>>
> I disagree with this statement. Officials should be given the discretion
> to
> seek input from outside their departments to advise their minister as they
> see fit. If small interactive groups work well in the private sector, then
> they should work well in the public sector.

Of course it makes sense for public servants to seek advise from whoever
they wish. But not in preference to public, open, *transparent*
consultation.

Just because a certain practice is typical in the private sector doesn't
automatically make it suited to the public sector.

> From the outside, it looks like this is a practical workshop about nuts &
> bolts. For one, there's lots of bespoke software in government agencies.
> I'm
> sure many data management systems were not designed to have an API open to
> the world. Those kinds of discussions don't need to be held in a fully
> transparent manner.

Umm, that's my point: "from the outside"...

According to
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/users-sought-to-help-govt-with-open-data-use
the workshop is to “brainstorm ways in which New Zealand government data
could be used to solve some real world problems"

That's a pretty wide brief, to which a lot of people could usefully
contribute.

A few questions:
a. How does this workshop relate to the suggestions submitted to the
survey at http://data.govt.nz/ ?

b. Where does one find out about the "Data and Information Re-Use Work
Programme"? (A quick google returns a few mentions, but I couldn't find
any detail.)

I'll reiterate that my intent is not to "bag" anyone.

--
http://huntdesign.co.nz

>A few questions:
>a. How does this workshop relate to the suggestions >submitted to the
>survey at http://data.govt.nz/ ?

The survey on data.govt.nz was to help with the evaluation of the pilot site.
The evaluation report has now been submitted to the Data and Information Re-Use
Working Group, who will be making recommendations to the Steering Group in
August.

Suggestions for improvements to the site's functionality made via the survey
and the discussion forum on data.govt.nz have been collated and, depending on
recommendations made to the Steering Group, will go into a development plan for
the site.

Unfortunately, responses to both the survey and the on-site discussion forum
have not yet yielded enough of a clue as to what datasets would be most useful,
and/or how these might used.

The “solving real-world problems using government data” workshop outcomes will
go into the mix of determining what key data needs to be made available.