Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025 - commitment 3: data and digital commitment

Progress to December 2023

Commitment 3: data and digital commitment

Action 1

Open up data relevant to other open government themes, such as key climate change datasets used by government for modelling and reporting, data on public transport and public sector expenditure.

Progress and next steps

Progress

We are happy to continue to offer support to colleagues working on the Climate Change Plan and Fiscal Transparency commitment in relation to sharing data. Good foundations are in place to work collaboratively to support opening up data in relation to these themes.

Next steps 

• support colleagues in the Fiscal Transparency Programme to support their Data Review and Data Strategy
• progress initial plans to openly publish specific climate change data
• share guidelines and insights from the Pilot Public Engagement Panel with Open Government commitments  
• share guidelines and insights from the Pilot Public Engagement Panel with open government commitments

Status

On schedule

Action 2

Run a CivTech challenge to evaluate if technology can make public sector data easy to find, assess outcomes and set out the way forward.

Progress and next steps

Progress

Find.Data.Gov.Scot the new data discovery search engine developed in partnership with NatureScot as part of a CivTech challenge, was launched as a rebranded beta version at the Data Standards and Open Data Community of Practice conference on 9 November.

More than 7,500 datasets from almost 300 data owners are now accessible. The platform was also promoted at the Data Summit and with the open data user community at the Scottish Open Data Unconference in November.

Data sources are being continually added. Dtime, the company developing the solution, is engaging with open data users to prioritise the next batch of Scottish source data websites to make discoverable on Find.Data.Gov.Scot.

Schema.org (which provides guidance on structured data) underpins the site’s html code, making it’s results more widely accessible by other search engines.

The feedback gathered following the launch of the rebranded beta version will inform the next iteration, which includes use as an application programming interface (API) for integration into other platforms, and generation of comma separated values (CSV) files.

We believe this is the largest data discovery portal in Scotland, providing a greater variety of unrestricted data sources of different formats when compared to an internet search.

Next Steps

• continue to add data sources
• develop the API integration capability
• incorporate feedback for wider launch with added features in early 2024

Status

On schedule

Action 3

Set up the Data Transformation Framework stating what ‘good data’ looks like and the process by which organisations can improve – this focuses on opportunity for organisations to improve data maturity, data literacy and adoption of standards, through collaboration and engagement with local government and other public sector bodies, to be useful for civil society.

Progress and next steps

Progress

The first iteration of a minimum viable product (MVP) of a modular, self-supporting approach to data maturity planning is now being validated with the third cohort of the data maturity programme alongside the facilitated sessions. We have held an initial discussion about the potential hosting for wider use by the Scottish Digital Academy (SDA) and will agree requirements for this in early 2024. We have started to develop aspects of the product for a service manual to support the transformation of Scottish public digital services.

In addition to the pathway products for data strategy and data governance that were started earlier this year, good progress has been made on the data standards pillar. Work is also underway on an innovation pillar to support the data improvement process. We have set up an online sandpit environment to review products with public sector stakeholders and will also be seeking feedback from the wider Scottish data community of practice.

We have doubled capacity for the third cohort of the data maturity programme, which launched in September, to accommodate interest from across the public sector. The fourth cohort will begin in January 2024.

The second persona project, which provided representation of people in the public sector most likely to engage early with the Data Transformation Framework, has been used for a University of Edinburgh consultancy project. The project has produced recommendations on the approach and techniques to encourage engagement with the Framework and data standards.

We have also developed two model group structures for data leadership in the public sector. One based on developing a long-term vision and another for realising the vision. Terms of reference have been drafted and we are in the process of agreeing facilitation and secretariat support to recruit group members.

Next steps

• identify requirements for publishing the MVP (once finalised) on the SDA platform and the service manual
• continue to gather feedback for the modular, self-guided data maturity planning product
• set up public sector data leadership groups 
• publish the first release of draft resources for the data transformation framework and gather feedback from stakeholders

Status

On schedule

Action 4

Review the front end of our official statistics open data publishing platform, www.statistics.gov.scot.

Progress and next steps

Progress

In our last update we outlined plans to develop a road map to scope further improvements to the technical capabilities and front-end of our official statistics open data publishing platform, statistics.gov.scot.

The aim of this programme of work is to ensure the platform better meets the needs of our users (both data producers and consumers). This will realistically continue beyond the end of the current duration of Scotland’s Open Government Action 2021 to 2025.

We successfully recruited for an Open Data Technical Lead who joined the Data Division in October 2023. This role will take forward an improvements project for the statistics.gov.scot  platform.

Next steps

Initiating and running a discovery to learn about:

• statistics.gov.scot users and what they are trying to achieve
• opportunities to improve the service

Status

On schedule

Action 5

Increase the amount of Scottish public sector open data being published, through collaborations such as the Data Standards and Open Data Community of Practice.

Progress and next steps

Progress

The first Data Standards and Open Data Community of Practice conference took place online on the 8 and 9 November. Sessions were built around the central theme of open data and data standards and work towards using data for seamless online public services.

Organised by the Technical Data Policy Team, the event saw speakers from across the public sector present 11 talks over the two days on topics including data standards in local government, metadata catalogues, public sector data literacy, joint chronologies, open data, data linkage and data transformation.

The event was advertised as part of the DataFest Fringe, a two week festival of data innovation and AI. Not only was it well supported by the community, who came together to discuss and share their experiences, ideas and expertise, 

it also drew a wider audience of interested practitioners. Feedback from attendees has been wholly positive.

The Scottish Government (SG) also participated in several external events during November to raise awareness of the open government commitment and the wider enabling role played by data across our key themes of data discovery, internal capacity, external user needs and building trustworthiness.

The Data Summit is an international conference held in Edinburgh, created to bring together data leaders across industry, public sector, voluntary sector and academia to celebrate data innovation, and AI. The Scottish Government Data Division was a partner and exhibitor at the event which provided a good opportunity to link with data producers and consumers to better understand their needs.

The Scottish Open Data Unconference, organised by the entirely volunteer-run charity, Code the City, took place on the 18 and 19 November in Aberdeen. The Scottish Government shared information and discussed find.data.gov.scot, the enabling role of data in the public sector and our open government commitment. A valuable aspect of the unconference was connecting, listening and learning from the open data user community.

We delivered a session on why open data is important as part of the Scottish Digital Academy Data Science Accelerator programme event. The aim of the programme is to increase the use of data science across the public sector in Scotland. As part of the event we used real-world examples to demonstrate how open data has helped to solve problems, create innovation, and highlight social inequalities. 

Following our work over summer 2023 with fractals co-op and Open Data Services Co-operative, we received the high-level research findings and recommendations on our foundational approaches to open data publishing. We shared these for the first time at the Data Standards and Open Data Community of Practice conference in November and at this event we talked about how we went about running the workshops. The work has helped us understand the technical and operational issues that make publishing open data challenging for public services, and where there have been successes in helping public services publish open data. The recommendations will form part of a report to be published next year and will form the basis of work to be carried out on our vision and priorities for open data.

Next steps

• continue to grow involvement in the Data Standards and Open Data Community of Practice to facilitate shared learning to make better foundational use of Scotland’s public sector data
• receive, consider and publish the open data report
• consider recommendations from the open data report; and agree and prioritise a way forward

Status

On schedule

Action 6

Develop a public register of AI algorithms.

Progress and next steps

Progress

The Scottish AI Register was formally launched in March 2023 at the Scottish AI Summit. The Register provides information on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in use or in development within the Scottish public sector. 

Using the Register, both members of the public and those working in AI in the public sector can get to know the basics of the AI systems, examine them in more detail, and learn where we are using data to help make decisions.

Users are also invited to engage with us, and to ask questions and give feedback to help us develop trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI systems.

For public sector users the Register is designed to help those starting out on their AI journey by providing them with structure and guidance to adopt a consistent, ethical and open approach to developing and using AI, which is essential to earning the public’s trust.

We are currently seeking ministerial approval to make the use of the AI Register mandatory at least within the core of Scottish Government, but in the meantime we are engaging across the Scottish Government and the Scottish public sector to incentivise participation by demonstrating the benefits of developing AI in the open and positioning the register as a shared central resource.

There are currently three AI use cases live on the register, with a number of others in draft and expected to go live shortly. We are also working with SG automation colleagues to capture changing internal processes which make use of AI.

Next steps

• we are now very close to making use of the register mandatory for Scottish public sector users, and hope to have Cabinet sign off before the end of the financial year
• we will work with public and third sector users to help them investigate potential efficiencies through shared innovation and best practice
• we are engaging with the register technical provider to add an AI risk management library to the register. Offering guidance on policy, risk and AI type – this will help new AI users make better, more secure use of the new technology
• we will continue to work with our contractor to identify national and international opportunities to highlight the best practice demonstrated in Scotland’s use of AI

Status

On schedule