Adrian Short launched an initiative a few weeks ago to encourage UK government and public sector organisations to make their data available to the general public. The first phase of the project – called Mash the State – is seeking to get all ‘UK local councils to serve up a news RSS feed from their website by Christmas 2009′.

RSS feeds allow for website updates to be pushed out to subscribers. This negates the requirement for visitors to return to a site checking for updates. Liz Ainaz and USA.gov outline a collection reasons why government institutions should have RSS feeds. These include:

• RSS feeds are an efficient way for web users to keep up-to-date with news that interests them
• They provide a means for pushing information to users on their terms and based on their access medium e.g. RSS readers
• Adopting new communications channels leads to better communication with the public and greater awareness of government information
• Allows government agencies to more easily track updates to each other’s content. This offers potential for increased collaboration and information sharing across government that could reduce duplication and inconsistencies across government websites.

Irish Council websites

The Rep. of Ireland has 30 County Councils, providing a similar range of services to their UK equivalents. They all have websites, but few provide RSS feeds. Indeed, an investigation of these sites found only six provided RSS feeds for news releases. These were:

• Cavan County Council
• Kilkenny County Council
• Laois County Council
• Meath County Council
• Sligo County Council
• South Dublin County Council

Out of these six, however, the feeds from Sligo and Kilkenny were not working correctly. Thus, only 13% of Irish County Councils provide functional RSS feeds. This is similar to the UK Council rate of 15%, when the Mash the State project began. The current rate is up to 21% following campaigning as a result of the initiative. A full list of Irish Council websites and their provision of RSS feeds is available at County Council RSS feeds.

The absence of RSS feeds is not just a local government issue, nor is it particularly a Irish problem. For example, the agency Enterprise Ireland, tasked with focusing on investing in research and innovation, does not provide RSS feeds for news releases.  Also, the EU website for Creativity and Innovation does not have RSS feeds available for its latest news. This is especially striking given its objective is to “raise awareness of the importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development”.

While there are services available that will create RSS feeds from webpages e.g. Feedity, Dapper and Versionista, the requirement should not be outsourced to users to free this data. Instead, councils should realise the potential for greater engagement and civic debate to emerge as a result of making data more open and accessible. For example, making the minutes of council meetings more easily accessible, creates a more transparent and accountable democratic environment, with which citizens can engage.

Importance and usefulness of data

Adrian Short provides an example of how and why RSS feeds are important in the context of aggregating local news content. The dissemination of data should be a priority for local councils. With this in mind, they should adhere to Open data principles of accessibility and machine processability.

The process for developing an RSS feed is relatively simple and inexpensive. Local Councils should at least try to provide feeds for News, Events, Job vacancies and Council meeting minutes. Also, their use of proprietary data formats e.g. Microsoft Word, for content should be overhauled. Instead, data should be available in raw text, HTML or RTF open standards. This will allow for content to be easily crawled and indexed by search engines, and thus easily found.

The decline of local newspapers means there will be less reporting and analysis of local council activities by traditional media outlets. Instead, much of this reporting may need to be taken up by local bloggers and special interest groups. Providing the public easy access to up-to-date local government information is a key requirement for active civic engagement in the local democratic process. Open data and transparency provides a solution to greater apathy and mistrust of local government institutions. It’s a means of empowering people and revitalising local democracy. Therefore, it’s intrinsic to the rational for local government, and should be embraced both in policy and technological terms.

The Timely Information to Citizens project was setup as part of the UK Government white paper Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power, published in July 2008. This paper dealt with how people can use existing and new tools to exert power, influence and control within their communities. One of the primary aspects of the paper was to identify ways in which the government could help local authorities provider better information to their citizens on public services and community initiatives in their local areas.

The aim of the project is to:

• Establish a body of good practice for the effective provision by local authorities of timely information on local services and performance to their citizens.
• Evaluate innovative new approaches to informing citizens through piloting with local authorities
• Through the IDeA, RIEPs and other support organisations, develop a programme of activities to support the spread of good practice among local authorities.

The first round of pilots was announced earlier this week. Ten councils were allocated a share of £620,000 in order to make it easier for citizens to access their local council services. A full list of the successful councils is available at Communities.gov.uk, but some of the most interesting include:

• London Borough of Barnet – will create an online consultation tool showing information on planning applications in a more useful format. It will allow users to track applications, comment on decisions and communicate with other users. Examples of this kind of public commentary is available at WriteToReply and was used successfully with the recent Power of Information Taskforce report.
• Birmingham City Council – will develop an online community that will enable local people to influence the planning and delivery of services
• Gloucestershire County Council – will create 18 online community notice boards for neighbourhoods that will provide information on local services and allow people to contact service providers. There will also be dedicated space on notice boards for partners such as police who will provide crime maps for the area
• Leeds City Council – will create an interactive information site for older and disabled users of adult social care that will enable users to find out about different options for services near where they live and see the reviews of services by other older and disabled people in their area
• Liverpool City Council – will develop the ‘My Neighbourhood’ portal that will allow people to request services, report problems in their neighbourhood and track how they are being dealt with

Petition for Open Source

These pilot projects are all addressing pressing needs and could be usefully applied to many local councils around the country. For this reason, and to avoid duplication of effort and expense, a petition was setup this week campaigning for all the software created as part of these pilots to be released under an open source licence. The petition currently has the support of nearly 200 people, including many prominent bloggers in the area of local government.

Tom Watson (Cabinet Office Minister for digital engagement) said in a recent statement that the British government will accelerate the use of open source software in its public services. As part of this acceleration he outlined the need to:

encourage innovation and innovators – inside Government by encouraging open source thinking…We want to give leadership to the IT industry and to the wider economy to benefit from the information we generate and the software we develop in Government

Licensing any software created as part of these pilot projects would demonstrate the leadership to the IT industry that the Government seeks. Given the increasing utilization of Open Source software within government – for example, the Number 10 site runs on WordPress – it is only fair that the government gives back to the community in this way. Some of the pilots relate to building communities and as such may build on Drupal or Elgg software.  As such, whether it is through releasing Drupal modules or WordPress/Elgg plugins, it’s important for local councils to demonstrate an appreciation of the open source community, and to support it through active engagement and participation. Licensing as Open source any software from the Timely Information to Citizens pilots would be a great start.

To support this initiative sign the Number 10 petition, or send a tweet to CommunitiesUK.