Democracy benefits from open data

Written by: Jan Hendriks

Digital transparency
According to Open State Foundation deputy director Tom Kunzler, democracy benefits from digital transparency. 'It's great to see how our users have long since ceased to consist solely of journalists, active citizens and civil society organizations. More and more civil servants are also making use of the open data made available by Open State Foundation, whether at the municipal, provincial or national level. They want to be able to compare data with each other.'

Controlling power
The controlling power such as council and state members are also increasingly using this data. In addition, the business community makes grateful use of it. 'For example, a Dutch construction company first checks whether a municipality has built up sufficient reserves before discussing possible infrastructure projects,' Kunzler knows. To his satisfaction, he has seen the status of Open State Foundation change over time. "When we were still operating as the action group 'Hack the Government,' governments saw us as a louse. Today, we are increasingly approached actively by governments, asking us to help them make things more transparent.

Intensifying relationship with CBS
The relationship with CBS has also intensified. 'When we requested the so-called Iv3 data of municipalities from CBS in 2013, our request was rejected (CBS response: for reasons of privacy nature). These financial reports must be submitted by lower authorities to CBS six times a year, in the form of standardized Excel tables. For us, the response of the CBS prompted us, by invoking the Government Information (Public Access) Act, to request all municipalities to submit these data directly to us. At the time, 200 municipalities immediately complied,' Kunzler said. 'Thanks in part to this openness, CBS decided to publish this data itself from October 2015 in the form of open data. That was a great success.'

Joint ambition
According to Kunzler, his organization and CBS are increasingly finding each other in a joint ambition for better data structures and open data. 'CBS has also participated twice in the Accountability Hack. This is a hackathon organized by us where we ask participants to use open data to map government performance and accountability of government spending. These editions took place at the Court of Audit and at the House of Representatives.'

Interpretation differences
Another part of the cooperation with CBS, according to Kunzler, is a pilot, which is currently taking place. 'Local and regional governments are required to periodically submit the so-called Iv3 data to CBS, in the form of standardized Excel tables. However, these financial reports are at a high level of aggregation. This can lead to differences in interpretation. We therefore request that municipalities submit the underlying, more detailed financial data to CBS. They are not obliged to do so, but in the interest of transparency we have asked them to do so anyway," Kunzler said.

Important role for CBS
Tom Kunzler sees an important role for CBS when it comes to further standardizing and harmonizing datasets. According to him, when processing data into valuable information, it is important to register and code in an unambiguous way. 'If every municipality publishes an overview of polling station addresses in its own way, it is difficult to develop an app that every Dutch person can use to find the nearest polling station. A uniform way of recording data is then crucial.' In this respect, Kunzler is therefore pleased with the unique municipal codes, which CBS uses. 'However, this harmonization can be taken much further. CBS is in a good position to further facilitate this process.'

Source: CBS

This article can also be found in the Big Data dossier