Another day, another great news article on the growing rise of the “Democratisation of Data”. One theme that seems to be emerging however, is that the opening up of this data is more about snooping and prying and highlighting problems/discrepancies rather than improving citizen engagement and services.
Although the overall sentiment in this article is positive, I am bemused by the use of the term “hacker”. It’s perhaps just too broad a term – one one hand it means simply “an enthusiastic computer hobbyist“, on the other, “a person who breaks into computers“. I actually have a problem with both of these definitions in this context.
The opening up of government data should be about empowering normal citizens to make informed choices about the services they need, use and more importantly about the role they can play in their local/national community. Why then, do we feel the need to paint this excercise as something only the cyber elite can particpate in ?
It worries me deeply as I think it scares people off from engaging, preventing them from thinking about what could be achieved and simply re-inforces the “technology is bad/complicated” message we see all too often in the media.
We need to turn this around, just for a change, why don’t we lead with the quote Chris Taggart from Openly Local ends the article with – “It’s about engaging the community“.
There will be no change without a reason to change. Councils are risk-averse, they are supposed to be. Having stable Government is important in a democracy, but unless a reason is created to change then councils are doing the right thing, at least as far as investment is concerned by not-changing. The default rule in almost all councils closely follows the “if it ain’t broke …” maxim. So, the stakeholders, that is you and me need to lobby the council and also the government to change. Only when the alternative of not changing is a lesser preferable option will you see some change. The pressure can be political, financial or legal, but without this don’t hold your breath.
Of course it would help to have some vision at a national level around e-Government and more importantly electronic social engagement, but all the time the role is demoted to the point of anonymous then nothing is going to happen. Ultimtely the change is likely to come from an external source such as a pressure group, a professional body or a political group that captures the publics’ imagination with what can be achieved. The change in government will therefore be driven to counter accusations of inaction, incompetance and inefficiency.
There is one other very quick way to incite and induce change. Have the funding follow innovation. This is not about simply adding more money into the pot to incentivise ‘cool’ new (but unsustainable) toy projects, but also about cutting existing budgets unless change is delivered. Changing has to be the least worse option for local government.