How to promote improvements in public administration using open data

In the current economic, social and technological context, where everything changes at high speed, citizens demand agile and flexible services. The influence of native digital companies, adapted to the specific needs of their customers, thanks to the use of algorithms and cutting-edge technological solutions, is forcing traditional companies to transform.

Public administrations are aware of this situation, so they are also changing to better meet citizens’ demands. Open data is one of the resources that public agencies can use to achieve this goal. Thanks to open data, administrations can promote transparency and citizen participation, optimize their resources and improve their efficiency.

Nowadays, we can see some projects that are an example of the role that open data can play in the modernization of public administrations:

Increased transparency

A large number of public institutions - at national, regional and local level- have implemented portals that allow citizens to first-hand know how public administrations carry out their activity. In this way, significant improvements in transparency and accountability are being obtained. This is the case of Presupuestos de Aragón or Lo que tú aportas, created by Valladolid city. Using this tools, citizens can indicate the amount of taxes that they pay and discover how the money is distributed.

The higher availability of information also drives citizens possibilities of directly participating in the system. It is increasingly common to find collaborative platforms focused on specific issues that serve as a tool to enable new communication channels between citizens and governments, facilitating their active participation in policy-making. An example is TIPI, an on-line transparency, information access and accountability tool. Created by civil society, TIPI is focused on monitoring all Spanish parliamentary activity related to 21 thematic areas such as poverty, social justice or sustainable development.

In addition, open data portals also facilitate the work of journalists and media to inform citizens. You can find multiple examples in the data journalism channel of Madrid open data portal.

Efficiency improvements

But open data does not just help improve transparency. Disseminating information about municipal services, for example, helps their promotion and may increase the number of users who enjoy such services. In addition, knowing how these services are used can be used to identify areas for improvement, optimize their operation and better plan resources.

For this reason, different governments have created applications to inform about the municipal services that they offer, as Junta al día, a new information channel to know the most important news about the Junta de Extremadura, or Eventos Smart Coruña that provides an agile access to both public and private cultural information related to the city.

In addition, through the reuse of open data, citizens, companies and organizations can also create different applications that optimize administration and citizens’ relationship. These applications usually integrate information from different sources (local, regional and state), facilitating a global vision. An example is Perfildelcontratante.es, a service of notices about bids, awards, and private projects that promotes the participation of small and medium enterprises in the public procurement processes. In addition, Papelea is a web platform that seeks to help users to speed up their procedures with different public agencies nationwide. Papelea integrates open data from more than 60 local, regional and state administrations, including deadlines, forms to be completed, electronic procedure, date of update or contact information, among others.

Many of these applications or platforms aim to accelerate public procedures, driving self-management, so resources can be dedicated to other value-add activities, such as subasta BOE, which allows citizens to participate in online auctions, or AppValència, which facilitates direct access to virtual  City of Valencia office to consult instances, records, pattern and pending procedures.

Improvement in decision making

Another advantage that public administrations can obtain from the use of open data is the identification of patterns to support decision making. For example, there are interesting experiences using the analysis of people movements in different areas to make strategic decisions for tourism promotion.

In this sense, in recent months, tools have been created to help optimize data collection, such as Málaga City Sense, an open data platform that collects information from the urban environment thanks to citizens’ collaboration and through different devices located in the city. The users act as sensors, generating data through a mobile application that collects information related to temperature, humidity or noise, in an anonymously and safely way. These data are shared with Málaga open data portal and can be used by the authorities to improve decision making.

As we have seen, thanks to open data, public administrations can also obtain direct benefits such as the optimization of their processes and services, the promotion of transparency, the active participation of citizens in public policies or the improvement of decision-making, among others.

An increasing number of public authorities rely on data to promote innovation inside and outside the administration. To continue working along the same lines, it will be necessary to continue promoting collaboration between administrations and citizens to develop and test new solutions or services that will drive a new era of data-driven policies.