FEMP

The publication of open data is a practice that drives technological development, benefits the business sector, and informs citizens. However, there are still some institutions that do not publish their data in open format, either because they lack the means or the necessary guidance to do so.

To solve this problem, in a firm commitment to transparency and the reuse of public information, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) has created a list that serves as a guide to take the first steps in open data that can also serve as a reference for the different local entities.. The idea is to complement the catalogues of published datasets and try to get at least these datasets published. The reason? As the FEMP points out, "the fact that all local administrations publish sets of data on a specific topic generates synergies and opportunities for products and services, which can be replicated in different entities".

In 2017, the FEMP published a first list of 20 recommended datasets, rising to 40 in 2019 and reaching the current 80 that were submitted in 2023.

 The FEMP's 80 outstanding datasets can now be consulted on a website that gathers detailed information, and a document summarising the information. In this post, we analyse its content and recommendations.

Evolution of municipal open data engagement

Over the last few years, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces has been expanding the list of open data to be published by local entities. This expansion reflects not only the increasing maturity of local administrations in their capacity to manage and publish data, but also the increasing demand by citizens, businesses and other social agents for useful and reusable information to develop services, research or simply to better understand their urban environment.

The 80 recommended datasets, covering almost all areas of local management, are presented, structured in categories that respond to the most relevant information needs of citizens:

• Urban planning and public space

Among the priority data, it is recommended to publish information on general urban development plans, urban planning licences, technical inspection of buildings, street maps, cartographic representations of natural spaces, monuments and inventory of immovable property, etc.

• Transport

This category refers to datasets about public transport, cycle lanes, public car parks (including those for people with reduced mobility), electric vehicle charging points, loading and unloading zones, traffic and accidents.

• Environment

In this sector, the FEMP recommends publishing data on air and water quality, meteorological data, noise pollution, trees, parks and gardens, waste management, clean points, recycling containers, natural spaces and risk areas.

• Public Sector

Here the publication of budget data, subsidies, procurement, average supplier payment period, public debt, regulations, transparency obligations and administrative procedures is recommended.

• Demography and society

Data is collected on the municipal census, unemployment and employment, social aid, assistance services for people in need, census of associations and municipal facilities (educational, health, sports).

• Tourism and culture

We found datasets on tourist accommodation, tourist flows, places of interest, cultural agenda and events.

The FEMP not only recommends what dataset to make available to citizens, but also offers guidance and good practices to carry out this task. Through the web, various information on each dataset is easily accessible:

• Your description.
• If available, recommended vocabularies to ensure interoperability.
• Whether they are high value sets (and the subcategory to which they belong).
• Recommended minimum refresh rate.
• File formats in which it is recommended to have the information.
• Examples of bodies that have already opened such a dataset, for reference.
• Some examples of visualisations that have been made with such open data.
• Etc.

Materials for data management and openness

To facilitate this opening-up process, local authorities have a number of resources at their disposal. Among others:

•  The Standard Ordinance on Data Governance in the local entity, developed by the Open Data Group of the FEMP Network, which provides a common legal framework for the process of data openness and data management.
• Templates and guidance for the formulation of the RISP (Re-use of Public Sector Information) Plan, including key issues for developing an open data initiative.
• Guide for the deployment of data portals, a monographic report that compiles best practices and recommendations for developing and maintaining data portals in municipalities.

Challenges and next steps

Despite progress, the full implementation of these 80 datasets is a challenge for many municipalities, especially smaller ones, which may face technical or resource difficulties in publishing them.

Therefore, the continuous support of supra-municipal bodies such as provincial councils, autonomous communities and the FEMP itself is essential, as well as inter-municipal collaboration to share good practices, tools and technological solutions.

The extension to 80 priority datasets marks a milestone on the road to a data-driven governance model, where public information is transformed into a common good that generates value for both administrations and society as a whole.

We encourage you to consult the new project website and to progressively incorporate these datasets into your municipal portals, thus contributing to the construction of a more complete open data ecosystem, useful and transformative for our cities.

This episode focuses on data governance and why it is important to have standards, policies and processes in place to ensure that data is correct, reliable, secure and useful. For this purpose, we analyze the Model Ordinance on Data Governance of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, known as the FEMP, and its application in a public body such as the City Council of Zaragoza. This will be done by the following guests:

• Roberto Magro Pedroviejo, Coordinator of the Open Data Working Group of the Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and civil servant of the Alcobendas City Council.

• María Jesús Fernández Ruiz, Head of the Technical Office of Transparency and Open Government of Zaragoza City Council.

Listen to the full podcast (only available in Spanish)

Summary of the interview

1. What is data governance?

Roberto Magro Pedroviejo: We, in the field of Public Administrations, define data governance as an organisational and technical mechanism that comprehensively addresses issues related to the use of data in our organisation. It covers the entire data lifecycle, i.e. from creation to archiving or even, if necessary, purging and destruction. Its purpose is that data is of quality and available to all those who need it: sometimes it will be only the organisation itself internally, but many other times it will be the general public, re-users, the university environment, etc. Data governance must facilitate the right of access to data. In short, data governance makes it possible to respond to the objective of managing our administration effectively and efficiently and achieving greater interoperability between all administrations.

2. Why is this concept important for a municipality?

María Jesús Fernández Ruiz: Because we have found that, within organisations, both public and private, data collection and management is often carried out without following homogeneous criteria, standards or appropriate techniques. This translates into a difficult and costly situation, which is exacerbated when we try to develop a data space or develop data-related services. Therefore, we need an umbrella that obliges us to manage data, as Roberto has said, effectively and efficiently, following homogeneous standards and criteria, which facilitates interoperability.

3. To meet this challenge, it is necessary to establish a set of guidelines to help local administrations set up a legal framework. For this reason, the FEMP Model Ordinance on Data Governance has been created. What was the process of developing this reference document like?

Roberto Magro Pedroviejo: Within the Open Data Network Group that was created back in 2017, one of the people we have counted on and who has contributed a lot of ideas has been María Jesús, from Zaragoza City Council. We were leaving COVID, just in March 2021, and I remember perfectly the meeting we had in a room lent to us by the Madrid City Council in the Cibeles Palace. María Jesús was in Zaragoza and joined the meeting by videoconference. On that day, seeing what things and what work we could tackle within this multidisciplinary group, María Jesús proposed creating a model ordinance. The FEMP and the Network already had experience in creating model ordinances to try to improve, and above all help, municipalities and local entities or councils to create regulations.

We started working as a multidisciplinary team, led by José Félix Muñoz Soro, from the University of Zaragoza, who is the person who has coordinated the regulatory text that we have published. And a few months later, in January 2022 to be precise, we held a meeting. We met in person at the Zaragoza City Council and there we began to establish the basis for the model ordinance, what type of articles it should have, what type of structure it should have, etc. And we got together a multidisciplinary team, as we said, which included experts in data governance and jurists from the University of Zaragoza, staff from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, colleagues from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, professionals from the local public sphere and journalists who are experts in open data.

The first draft was published in May/June 2022. In addition, it was made available for public consultation through Zaragoza City Council's Citizen Participation platform. We contacted around 100 national experts and received around 30 contributions of improvements, most of which were included, and which allowed us to have the final text by the end of last year, which was passed to the legal department of the FEMP to validate it. The regulations were published in February 2024 and are now available on the Network's website for free download.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the excellent work done by all the people involved in the team who, from their respective points of view, have worked selflessly to create this knowledge and share it with all the Spanish public administrations.

4. What are the expected benefits of the ordinance?

María Jesús Fernández Ruiz: For me, one of the main objectives of the ordinance, and I think it is a great instrument, is that it takes the whole life cycle of the data. It covers from the moment the data is generated, how the data is managed, how the data is provided, how the documentation associated with the data must be stored, how the historical data must be stored, etc. The most important thing is that it establishes criteria for managing the data while respecting its entire life cycle.

The ordinance also establishes some principles, which are not many, but which are very important and which set the tone, which speak, for example, of effective data governance and describe the importance of establishing processes when generating the data, managing the data, providing the data, etc.

Another very important principle, which has been mentioned by Roberto, is the ethical treatment of data. In other words, the importance of collecting data traceability, of seeing where the data is moving and of respecting the rights of natural and legal persons.

Another very important principle that generates a lot of noise in the institutions is that data must be managed from the design phase, the management of data by default. Often, when we start working on data with openness criteria, we are already in the middle or near the end of the data lifecycle. We have to design data management from the beginning, from the source. This saves us a lot of resources, both human and financial.

Another important issue for us and one that we advocate within the ordinance is that administration has to be data-oriented. It has to be an administration that is going to design its policies based on evidence. An administration that will consider data as a strategic asset and will therefore provide the necessary resources.

And another issue, which we often discuss with Roberto, is the importance of data culture. When we work on and publish data, data that is interoperable, that is easy to reuse, that is understood, etc., we cannot stop there, but we must talk about the data culture, which is also included in the ordinance. It is important that we disseminate what is data, what is quality data, how to access data, how to use data. In other words, every time we publish a dataset, we must consider actions related to data culture.

5. Zaragoza City Council has been a pioneer in the application of this ordinance. What has this implementation process been like and what challenges are you facing?

María Jesús Fernández Ruiz: This challenge has been very interesting and has also helped us to improve. It was very fast at the beginning and already in June we were going to present the ordinance to the city government. There is a process where the different parties make private votes on the ordinance and say "this point I like", "this point seems more interesting", "this one should be modified", etc. Our surprise is that we have had more than 50 private votes on the ordinance, after having gone through the public consultation process and having appeared in all the media, which was also enriching, and we have had to respond to these votes. The truth is that it has helped us to improve and, at the moment, we are waiting for it to go to government.

When they tell me how do you feel, María Jesús? The answer is well, we are making progress, because thanks to this ordinance, which is pending approval by the Zaragoza City Council government, we have already issued a series of contracts. One that is extremely important for us: to draw up an inventory of data and information sources in our institution, which we believe is the basic instrument for managing data, knowing what data we have, where they originate, what traceability they have, etc. Therefore, we have not stopped. Thanks to this framework that has not yet been approved, we have been able to make progress on the basis of contracts or something that is basic in an institution: the definition of the professionals who have to participate in data management.

6. You mentioned the need to develop an inventory of datasets and information sources, what kind of datasets are we talking about and what descriptive information should be included for each?

Roberto Magro Pedroviejo: There is a core, let's say a central core, with a series of datasets that we recommend in the ordinance itself, referring to other work done in the open data group, which is to recommend 80 datasets that we could publish in Spanish public administrations. The focus is also on high-value datasets, those that can most benefit municipal management or can benefit by providing social and economic value to the general public and to the business community and reusers. Any administration that wants to start working on the issue of datasets and wonders where to start publishing or managing data has to focus, in my view, on three key areas in a city:

• The personal data, i.e. our beloved census: who are the people living in our city, their ages, gender, postal addresses, etc.
• The urban and territorial data, that is, where these people live, what the territorial delimitation of the municipality is, etc. Everything that has to do with these sets of data related to streets, roads, even sewerage, public roads or lighting, needs to be inventoried, to know where these data are and to have them, as we have already said, updated, structured, accessible, etc.
• And finally, everything that has to do with how the city is managed, of course, with the tax and budget area.

That is: the personal sphere, the territorial sphere and the taxation sphere. That is what we recommend to start with. And in the end, this inventory of datasets describes what they are, where they are, how they are and will be the first basis on which to start building data governance.

María Jesús Fernández Ruiz: Another issue that is also very fundamental, which is included in the ordinance, is to define the master datasets. Just a little anecdote. When creating a spatial data space, the street map, the base cartography and the portal holder are basic. When we got together to work, a technical commission was set up and we considered these to be master datasets for Zaragoza City Council. The quality of the data is determined by a concept in the ordinance, which is respecting the sovereignty of the data: whoever creates the data is the sovereign of the data and is responsible for the quality of the data. Sovereignty must be respected and that determines quality.

We then discovered that, in Zaragoza City Council, we had five different portal identifiers. To improve this situation, we define a descriptive unique identifier which we declare as master data. In this way, all municipal entities will use the same identifier, the same street map, the same cartography, etc. and this will make all services related to the city interoperable.

7. What additional improvements do you think could be included in future revisions of the ordinance?

Roberto Magro Pedroviejo: The ordinance itself, being a regulatory instrument, is adapted to current Spanish and European regulations. In other words, we will have to be very vigilant -we are already - to everything that is being published on artificial intelligence, data spaces and open data. The ordinance will have to be adapted because it is a regulatory framework to comply with current legislation, but if that regulatory framework changes, we will make the appropriate modifications for compliance.

I would also like to highlight two things. There have been more town councils and a university, specifically the Town Council of San Feliu de Llobregat and the University of La Laguna, interested in the ordinance. We have received more requests to know a little more about the ordinance, but the bravest have been the Zaragoza City Council, who were the ones who proposed it and are the ones who are suffering the process of publication and final approval. From this experience that Zaragoza City Council itself is gaining, we will surely all learn, about how to tackle it in each of the administrations, because we copy each other and we can go faster. I believe that, little by little, once Zaragoza publishes the ordinance, other city councils and other institutions will join in. Firstly, because it helps to organise the inside of the house. Now that we are in a process of digital transformation that is not fast, but rather a long process, this type of ordinance will help us, above all, to organise the data we have in the administration. Data and the management of data governance will help us to improve public management within the organisation itself, but above all in terms of the services provided to citizens.

And the last thing I wanted to emphasise, which is also very important, is that, if the data is not of high quality, is not updated and is not metadata-driven, we will do little or nothing in the administration from the point of view of artificial intelligence, because artificial intelligence will be based on the data we have and if it is not correct or updated, the results and predictions that AI can make will be of no use to us in the public administration.

María Jesús Fernández Ruiz: What Roberto has just said about artificial intelligence and quality data is very important. And I would like to add two things that we are learning in implementing this ordinance. Firstly, the need to define processes, i.e. efficient data management has to be based on processes. And another thing that I think we should talk about, and we will talk about within the FEMP, is the importance of defining the roles of the different professionals involved in data management. We are talking about data manager, data provider, technology provider, etc. If I had the ordinance now, I would talk about that definition of the roles that have to be involved in efficient data management. That is, processes and professionals.

Interview clips

The Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration has launched a grant for the development of Data Spaces for Intelligent Urban Infrastructures (EDINT). This project envisages the creation of a multi-sectoral data space that will bring together all the information collected by local authorities. The project will be carried out through the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and will receive a subsidy of 13 million euros, as stated in the Official State Gazette published on Wednesday 16 October.

A single point of access to smart urban infrastructure data

Thanks to this action, it will be possible to finance, develop and manage a multisectoral data space that will bring together all the information collected by the different Spanish municipalities in an aggregated and centralized manner. It should be recalled that data spaces enable the voluntary sharing of information in an environment of sovereignty, trust and security, established through integrated governance, organisational, regulatory and technical mechanisms.

EDINT will act as a single neutral point of access to smart city information, enabling companies, researchers and administrations to access information without the need to visit the data infrastructure of each municipality, increasing agility and reducing costs. In addition, it will allow connection with other sectoral data spaces.

The sharing of this data will help to accelerate technological innovation processes in smart city products and services. Businesses and organisations will also be able to use the data for the improvement of processes and efficiency of their activities.

The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) will implement the project.

The EDINT project will be articulated through the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces.The FEMP reaches more than 95% of the Spanish population, which gives it a deep and close knowledge of the needs and challenges of data management in Spanish municipalities and provinces.

Among the actions to be carried out are:

• Development and implementation of the data infrastructure and platform, which will store data from existing Smart City systems.
• Incorporation of local entities and companies interested in accessing the data space.
• Development of three use cases on the data space, focusing on the following areas: "smart mobility", "managed cities and territories" and "mapping the economic and social activity of cities and territories".
• Definition of the governance schemes that will regulate the operation of the project, guaranteeing the interoperability of the data, as well as the management of the complex network of stakeholders (companies, academic institutions and governmental organisations).
• Setting up Centres of Excellence and Data Offices, with physical workspaces. These centres will be responsible for the collection of lessons learned and the development of new use cases.

It is a ongoing and sustainable long-term project that will be open to the participation of new actors, be they data providers or data consumers, at any time.

A project aligned with Europe

This assistance is part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU. The creation of data spaces is envisaged in the European Data Strategy, as a mechanism to establish a common data market to ensure the European Union's leadership in the global data economy. In particular, it aims to achieve the free flow of information for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations.

Moreover, data spaces are a key area of the Digital Spain 2026 Agenda, which is driving, among other issues, the acceleration of the digitalisation processes of the productive fabric. To this end, sectoral and data-intensive digitalisation projects are being developed, especially in strategic economic sectors for the country, such as agri-food, mobility, health, tourism, industry, commerce and energy.

The launch of the EDINT project joins other previously launched initiatives such as funding and development grants for use cases and data space demonstrators, which encourage the promotion of public-private sectoral innovation ecosystems.

Sharing data under conditions of sovereignty, control and security not only allows local governments to improve efficiency and decision-making, but also drives the creation of creative solutions to various urban challenges, such as optimising traffic or improving public services. In this sense, actions such as the Data Spaces for Smart Urban Infrastructures represent a step forward in achieving smarter, more sustainable and efficient cities for all citizens.

The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) approved at the end of 2023 two model ordinances that address progress in two key areas: transparency and data governance. Both documents will not only improve the quality of processes, but also facilitate access, management and re-use of data. In this post, we will analyse the second ordinance drafted within the FEMP's Network of Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation in its quest to define common reference models. In particular, the ordinance on data governance.

The usefulness and good work of the Model Ordinance on Data Governance in Local Entities has been highlighted by the Multisectoral Association of Information (ASEDIE), which awarded it the prize in the category 'Promoting data literacy' at its 15th ASEDIE International Conference.

Under this premise, the document addresses all elements related to the collection, management and exploitation of data in order to approach them as a commongood, i.e. ensuring their openness, accessibility and re-use. This is a relevant objective for local administrations, as it enables them to improve their functioning, service delivery and decision-making. Data governance is the framework that guides and guarantees this process and this ordinance proposes a flexible regulatory framework that different administrations can adapt according to their specific needs.

What is data governance?

 Data Governance comprehensively addresses all aspects related to the collection, management and exploitation of data, as well as its openness and re-use by society as a whole on an equal basis. Itcan therefore bedefined as an organisational function responsible for being accountable for the effective, efficient and acceptable use of databy the organisation, which is necessary to deliver the business strategy. This is described in the specifications UNE 0077:2023 on Data Governance and UNE 78:2023 on Data Management, which include standardised processes to guide organisations in the establishment of approved and validated mechanisms that provide organisational support to aspects related to the opening and publication of data, for subsequent use by citizens and other institutions.

How was the FEMP Data Governance Ordinance developed?

In order to develop the Model Ordinance on Data Governance in the Local Entity, a multidisciplinary working group was set up in 2022, which included workers from the Public Administrations, private companies, representatives of the infomediary sector, the Data Office, universities, etc. This team set out two main objectives that would mark the content of the document:

• Develop guidelines for municipalities and other public authorities defining the strategy to be followed in order to implement an open data project.
• Create a reference model of datasets common to all public administrations to facilitate the re-use of information.

With these two challenges in mind, in early 2023 the FEMP working group started to establish aspects, structure, contents and work plan. During the following months, work was carried out to draft, elaborate and reach consensus on a single draft.

In addition, a participatory process was organised on the Idea Zaragoza platform to nurture the document with contributions from experts from all over the country and FEMP partners.

The result of all the work was based on the Open Data Charter (ODC), the recommendations issued by the Spanish Government's Data Office and the existing European and national regulations on this matter.

New features and structure of the Data Governance Ordinance

The FEMP's Model Ordinance on Data Governance is in line with the context in which it has been presented, i.e. it recognises relevant aspects of the current moment we are living in. One of the document's salient features is the premise of guaranteeing and enhancing the rights of both natural and legal persons and respecting the General Data Protection Regulation. The regulation places particular emphasis on the proportionality of anonymisation to ensure the privacy of individuals.

Another novel aspect of the standard is that it brings the vision of high-value data defined by the European Commission from the perspective of local government. In addition, the Model Ordinance recognises a single regime for access and re-use of public information, in accordance with Law 19/2013 of 9 December on transparency, access to public information and good governance, and Law 37/2007 on the re-use of public sector information.

Beyond ensuring the legal and regulatory framework, the FEMP Ordinance also addresses the data associated with artificial intelligence, a cutting-edge technological synergy that every day offers great innovative solutions. For an artificial intelligence to function properly, it is necessary to have quality data to help train it. In relation to this point, the ordinance defines quality requirements (Article 18) and metrics for their assessment that are adapted to each specific context and address issues such as accuracy, portability or confidentiality, among others.  The document establishes guarantees that the use of the data will be carried out in a way that respects the rights of individuals.

All these new aspects are part of the FEMP's Model Ordinance on Data Governance for Local Entities, which is organised in the following structure:

1. General provisions: This first section presents data as the main digital asset of Public Administrations as a strategic asset, and the object, principles and right of citizenship.
2. Planning, organisation and tools for data governance: Here the organisation and competencies for data governance are defined. In addition, the importance of maintaining an inventory of datasets and information sources is stressed (Article 9).
3. The data: This chapter recognises the publication requirements and security standards, the importance of the use of reference vocabularies, and the categories of datasets whose openness should be prioritised, namely the 80 typologies referred to by FEMP as most relevant.
4. Life cycle: This section highlights, on the one hand, the collection, opening, storage and use of data; and, on the other hand, the limits, deletion and destruction of data when these actions are required.  when these actions are required.
5. Access, publication and re-use: The fifth chapter deals with issues related to the exploitation of data such as the use of specific licences, exclusive rights, payment for re-use or prior request for access to certain datasets.
6. Liability and guarantees: The last point describes the sanctioning and disciplinary regime and the civil and criminal liabilities of the re-user.

In short, the publication of the Ordinance on Data Governance in Local Entities provides local administrations with a flexible regulation and defines administrative structures that seek to improve management, reuse and the promotion of a data-driven society.

You can access the full document here: Standard Ordinance on Data Governance in the Local Entity

The FEMP's Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation has just presented a guide focused on data visualisation. The document, which takes as a reference the Guide to data visualisation developed by the City Council of L'Hospitalet, has been prepared based on the search for good practices promoted by public and private organisations.

The guide includes recommendations and basic criteria to represent data graphically, facilitating its comprehension. In principle, it is aimed at all the entities that are members of the FEMP's Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation. However, it is also useful for anyone wishing to acquire a general knowledge of data visualisation.

Specifically, the guide has been developed with three objectives in mind:

• To provide principles and good practices in the field of data visualisation.
• To provide a model for the visualisation and communication of local authority data by standardising the use of different visual resources.
• Promote the principles of quality, simplicity, inclusiveness and ethics in data communication.

What does the guide include?

After a brief introduction, the guide begins with a series of basic concepts and general principles to be followed in data visualisation, such as the principle of simplification, the use of space or accessibility and exclusive design. Through graphic examples, the reader learns what to do and what not to do if we want our visualisation to be easily understood. 

The guide then focuses on the different stages of designing a data visualisation through a sequential methodological process, as shown in the following diagram:

As the image shows, before developing the visualisation, it is essential to take the time to establish the objectives we want to achieve and the audience we are targeting, in order to tailor the message and select the most appropriate visualisation based on what we want to represent.

When representing data, users have at their disposal a wide variety of visualisation objects with different functions and performance. Not all objects are suitable for all cases and it will be necessary to determine the most appropriate one for each specific situation. In this sense, the guide offers several recommendations and guidelines so that the reader is able to choose the right element based on his or her objectives and audience, as well as the data he or she wants to display.

The following chapters focus on the various elements available (infographics, dashboards, indicators, tables, maps, etc.) showing the different subcategories that exist and the good practices to follow in their elaboration, showing numerous examples that facilitate their understanding. Recommendations on the use of the text are also provided.

The guide ends with a selection of resources for further knowledge and data visualisation tools to be considered by anyone who wants to start developing their own visualisations.

You can download the complete guide below, in the "Documentation" section.

The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP, in Spanish acronyms) brings together various local councils, provincial councils, councils and island councils. In total, it represents more than 7,000 bodies, defending the general interests of Local Bodies and promoting cooperation.

We spoke to Roberto Magro, coordinator of the FEMP's open data working group and Head of Interactive Services at Alcobendas City Council, to talk to us about the situation of open data in local entities and the steps being taken to promote it.

Full interview:

1. Could you explain how the FEMP's open data group contributes to the openness and reuse of public information?

Since the creation of the group in 2017, we have mainly focused on the creation of two didactic guides on what open data is and what we need in a municipality to implement an open data project. In addition, we have proposed the 40 datasets that every administration should open up to facilitate the reuse of public sector information.

2. One of its lines of work has been the elaboration of the document Open Data FEMP 2019: 40 datasets to be published by Local Bodies, which aims to provide common data models that facilitate the interoperability and reuse of public sector information. Why did you choose these datasets?

The people who made up the working group are very diverse: civil servants from local councils, freelancers, the university, private companies and the association of the infomediary sector in Spain. We all started to investigate which datasets were starting to be published and which ones could be more interesting from a local administration, with a double purpose: to respond to internal needs and to respond to the needs of reusers. Thus we reached a proposal of 40 datasets with examples of what and how they are published in our administrations.

3. What is the status of this initiative and what are your plans for the future?

After a break during 2020, we have proposed different projects to be tackled by the group, in which the following actions stand out:

• Review the 40 datasets published to date: practical examples, add or remove datasets, etc.
• Define new datasets: emergency, risk catalogue, Open Cities project, etc.
• Methodological proposal on how to measure the impact of the data.
• Drawing up an ethical decalogue on the treatment and use of data.
• Carry out actions to disseminate the Guidelines in conferences, seminars, etc.
• Carry out training actions on open data (theory and practice) at political, managerial and technical level.

4. You are also Head of Interactive Services at Alcobendas City Council. Alcobendas has an open data portal with more than 200 published datasets. What is the day-to-day running of a local data initiative like? What challenges do you face and how do you solve them?

The Internet and being able to publish information in open format allows us to be very agile once we decide what data to publish.

Sometimes, from the Innovation, Digital Transformation and Economic Development Department of the City Council, we discover datasets that can be published and we talk to those responsible for the information to convince them that we can publish and disseminate the data they have. On other occasions, it is the departments themselves who come to us and ask if they can publish data on the municipal website and open data portal. Here, we always consult the Data Protection Officer, so that no legal problems arise, and with his or her approval, we publish the information.

For the last two years, we have been trying not only to publish new datasets, but also to create visualisations so that the majority of citizens can understand the data and interpret it more easily, as well as offering downloads of the data in multiple formats.

But it is not always easy to publish data; at other times we are faced with decision-makers who do not wish to publish the information or databases from which it is too costly to extract data, because of the budget involved in creating data extraction, transformation and publication processes. There is still a long way to go, but I believe that we have to be there, promoting publication, training people and raising awareness of the advantages of publishing open data for a city council.

5. Two years ago, in your article "The star dish of administrative management: an open data ration" you shared a series of reflections and recommendations that all administrations should take into account when developing an open data project. Do you think the open data situation has changed since then in our country? What strengths do you think there are? And weaknesses?

I think that in any medium or large Spanish public administration it is already known what open data is, but it is a different matter if data is published or can be published due to lack of resources.

Every month I receive messages or calls asking how to approach a project, if it is easy, what resources are needed, if I know a company that can help them. The work done by the FEMP is very important because it disseminates teamwork and all mayors receive an email with information, in this case, about open data and that they can count on the FEMP and the Network of Local Entities for Transparency and Citizen Participation to advise them.

Undoubtedly, the weak points continue to be the lack of training and resources to be able to tackle a project of this type. In small town councils, the regional councils should help to create portals where information can be published in order to overcome the shortage of material and human resources. A great deal of work is being done to support the publication and reuse of information from all small and medium-sized municipalities.

In order to respond to an open data project, every institution must reflect and answer the question of why we want to publish open data and launch them to develop a project of this type. The answer, in many cases, will be because it reinforces Transparency, Accountability or Open Government policies. In other cases, because it is a way of collaborating with citizens and companies to generate social and economic value.

Now that there is a European open data strategy and a digital agenda and AI strategy in our country, it is time to put it into action. We must believe in data and approach the governance of institutions with data.

Open data will be our allies to be able to justify all the Next Generation funds that will start to arrive this year.

I believe that all the circumstances are in place for data to be the engine that transforms our administrations, both at organisational and management level.

In order to respond to an open data project, every institution must reflect and answer the question of why we want to publish open data and launch them to develop such a project.

6. What recommendations would you give to those local or provincial bodies that are thinking of launching an open data initiative?

They should be trained, they should ask the FEMP Network, they should give an answer to the why and the open data project they want to undertake should be aligned with the institution's policies.

Last but not least, they should create a multidisciplinary group in their institution (IT, legal, innovators, staff from the economic area, environment, organisation and planning, social services, citizen services...) that are coordinated by a person who leads the team and backed by the highest governing body of a city council: the mayor's office. With open data we will be able to see what our management is like: good, bad or fair, and with the data we will be able to improve and meet the needs, not only of the administration but also of the interest groups with which we interact: citizens, companies, other institutions, etc.

Open data must respond to the social problems of our society and therefore, the sooner we tackle a project of these characteristics, the sooner we will be able to improve people's lives.

In any project related to data, it is common to have different sources of information. Data is key for companies and public administrations, in decision making or as a basis for the implementation of projects, services or products. But if these data sources display information in a heterogeneous way, it is difficult to operate.

In the world of open data, each administration covers a different scope, be it territorial - municipal, provincial, regional or national - or jurisdictional - for example, each ministry deals with data from a specific area: ecological transition, health, mobility, etc. -. To be able to carry out projects that cover several areas, we will need interoperable data. Otherwise, the exchange and integration of data within and between organisations will be incompatible.

Why is data harmonisation important?

Today, public administrations manage large amounts of data in different formats, with different management methods. It is common to host multiple copies in many different repositories. These data are often disseminated in portals across Europe without any harmonisation in terms of content and presentation. This explains the low level of re-use of existing information on citizens and businesses. Harmonisation of information allows for consistent and coherent data in a way that is compatible and comparable, unifying formats, definitions and structures.

This shaping of data can be done individually for each project, but it entails a high cost in terms of time and resources. It is therefore necessary to promote standards that allow us to have already harmonised data. Below are several examples of initiatives that advocate the search for common requirements, which are included in this visual:

Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda is working on a National Access Point (PAN, in its Spanish singles) where unified data on different modes of transport is collected. The creation of this portal responds to compliance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1926, which establishes the obligation for authorities, operators, managers and providers of transport services to provide information on multimodal journeys in the EU, based on a series of specifications that ensure its availability and reliability. Among other issues, it indicates that the content and structure of the relevant travel and traffic data need to be adequately described using appropriate metadata.

The creation of this Single Access Point was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on 22 February. The text indicates that the minimum universal traffic information related to road safety will be made public, whenever possible and free of charge, with a special focus on real-time services.

At the moment, the PAN has data from the DGT, the Basque Government, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Madrid City Council and the company Tomtom.

Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces

The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP, in its Spanish singles) has an open data group that has developed two guides to help municipalities implement open data initiatives. One of them is the proposal of 40 datasets that every administration should open to facilitate the reuse of public sector information. This guide not only seeks uniformity in the categories of data published, but also in the way they are published. A fact sheet has been created for each proposed dataset with information on update frequency, formats or recommended display form.

FEMP's future plans include reviewing the datasets published so far to assess whether to add or remove datasets and to include new practical examples.

Also in the field of cities, there is an initiative to further ground the harmonisation of a limited subset of datasets carried out in the framework of the Ciudades Abiertas project, with the collaboration of Red.es. The city councils participating in the project - A Coruña, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Zaragoza - have agreed on the opening of 27 harmonised datasets. Currently, common vocabularies have been developed for 16 of them and work continues on the others.

ASEDIE and its Top 3

In 2019, the Multisectoral Information Association (ASEDIE) launched an initiative for all Autonomous Communities to fully open three sets of data: the databases of cooperatives, associations and foundations. It was also proposed that they should all follow unified criteria to facilitate their reuse, such as the incorporation of the NIF of each of the entities.

The results have been very positive. To date, 15 autonomous communities have opened at least two of the three databases. The database of Associations has been opened by all 17 Autonomous Communities.

In 2020, ASEDIE proposed a new Top 3 and started to promote the opening of new databases: commercial establishments, industrial estates and SAT registers. However, due to the fact that not all Autonomous Regions have a register of commercial establishments (because it is not a regional competence), this dataset has been replaced by the Register of Energy Efficiency Certificates.

UniversiData

UniversiData is a collaborative project to promote open data linked to higher education in Spain in a harmonised way. To date, five universities have joined the project: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad de Valladolid and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M).

Within the framework of the project, the "Common Core" specification has been developed, with the aim of providing answers to two questions that the universities ask themselves when opening their data: What datasets should I publish? And how should I do it? That is to say, with which fields, granularity, formats, encodings, frequency, etc. The Common Core coding has been created in accordance with the Law on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance. Two University Transparency Rankings have also been considered for its development (that of the Fundación Compromiso y Transparencia and that of Dyntra), as well as the document "Towards an Open University: Recommendations for the S.U.E.", of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE).

All these initiatives show how data harmonisation can improve the usefulness of data. If we have unified data, its reuse will be easier, as the time and cost of its analysis and management will be reduced.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

In 2017, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) published the guide "Open data: strategic guide for its implementation and minimum datasets to be published", which included a series of recommendations and guidelines for public data opening with the aim of driving its publication and reuse. In addition to information related to legal framework or governance model, the guide also included 20 datasets considered as "the most interesting, possible and easier to publish by public administrations".

After the guide success, the FEMP has continued working on expanding these datasets, identifying 20 new ones that will make possible to standardize the publication of open data and facilitate its management. For this, the FEMP count on the help of a multidisciplinary working group where different interest groups were represented: cities, citizens, companies, universities and public bodies.

The result is a new document, entitled Open Data FEMP 2019: 40 datsets to be published by the Local Entities, whose objective is to provide a "common open data model that facilitates interoperability and the reuse of public sector information", as well as to bring Spanish local entities’ commitment to normalize open data closer to the international community.

This new guide addresses not only what datasets should be published by local entities, but also how they should be published to make them more useful for citizens and reusers. Using different tabs - one for each recommended dataset – the report indicated the recommended format or update frequency when publishing each dataset. The guide also indicates each dataset reuse value or complexity (based on a scale from 1 to 5), as well as some recommended visualization to make easier citizens access to information.

The document is mainly oriented to medium to large cities, although smaller municipalities can also use it as a knowledge framework. It can help companies, citizens, universities, entrepreneurs, researchers, data journalists, students, etc. interested in the subject, although, the roles that can make the most of the information are:

• Those responsible for developing or that have to develop open data policies.
• Those responsible for Open Government policies (transparency, participation, accountability, collaboration).
• Those responsible for the development of Information Technology.
• Those responsible for "Smart Cities" and Innovation projects.

The following image shows which are the 40 datasets recommended in the document:

Here you can download the full report (in Spanish, with an executive summary in English):

On 23 October, the Red.es Auditorium will host the “Local organisations and open data” conference, which forms part of a pre-event for the Aporta Meeting 2017. This session, which will take place in the afternoon (from 16:30 to 19:30) will be held in the format of a meeting and its objective is to bring together different agents that work in local open data ecosystems (publishers, reusers, etc.) to evaluate the current situation in this field at a local level.

In said meeting, the aim is to identify needs, opportunities and benefits in the drive towards opening data and data economy and analyse the needs and demands of reusers in sets of field data that are demanded and not offered. Finally, it will address the need to standardise vocabulary, APIs and data quality together with the evolution of open data platforms.

The work meeting will be structured into two blocks:

• 4 talks on the subjects of: “Guide to FEMP open data”, “State of open data initiatives at a local level”, “Data economy” and “Open data project within local administration”
• Roundtable discussion that will tackle: open data, technological support and the standardisation of its publication and reuse, local open data ecosystems and data economy and conclusions and work lines to put into action.

The aims of this meeting are to generate a community and space for debate regarding opening data in local organisations, obtain a view of the current state of opening data at a local level and identify barriers in opening and consuming data. It also aims to agree future work lines to create local open data ecosystems and drive and continue with actions that are being carried out by work groups in this field from the FEMP and RECI.

This event will be shared on social media with the hashtag #LocalOpenData. It has been organised with the collaboration of Red.es, Spanish network of intelligent cities (RECI - Red Española de Ciudades Inteligentes) and the FEMP – Network of local organisations for transparency and participation. The main conclusions that will be taken from this conference will be made clear during the Aporta Meeting 2017 on 23 October.