From:
Ben
Date:
May 12 09:56 NZST
Short link
http://www.kable.co.uk/carol-tull-open-data-efficiency-12may10
The director of information policy and services at the National Archives has
said the public sector needs to make information more easily accessible to
people to achieve efficiency
Archives director calls for simplified data
- GC News
- Kable <http://www.kable.co.uk/>, Tuesday 11 May 2010 00.05 BST
Carol Tullo said organisations could deliver more for less if they "provide
access to information and enable others to use it".
"If we empower and provide easy routes and simple routes without barriers to
this wealth of information that we create in the public sector, and allow
others to add value to that and to innovate, then we can strive and drive
for innovation," she told the annual conference of geographical information
systems (GIS) specialist Esri.
She made the point that many people cannot read a simple graph or tabular
material. "So if you're sitting somewhere in authority, in a local
government <http://www.kable.co.uk/local-government> department or a
government agency, and you're churning out information and you're saying,
'It's online, it's there for everyone to look at' - 80% of people can't read
it or understand it."
She also said that public sector organisations are "drowning in information"
and have to deal with the challenge of managing it without being "completely
compliance based". Making the information more accessible to outsiders would
encourage them to provide solutions that would improve public sector
efficiency.
Tullo said she believes local government initiatives are paving the way for
open data, and that allowing communities to get involved and interact with
certain data initiatives was a step in the right direction. But she also
acknowledged that there are concerns in organisations over losing control of
the data.
"As we move away from close central control, it does mean we lose the
ability to know exactly how our information is being used," she said,
claiming that the public sector would have to accept this in return for
broader potential benefits.
Tullo also described GIS as an important data tool. "There is absolutely no
question that information does depend almost entirely on mapping place,
space and location," she said.