[okfn-za] Stress testing the system

Sat Aug 17 11:12:37 UTC 2013

Adi,

Hi. I think the top 20 kinds of municipal data that would be immediately
useful for civic apps and ordinary citizens interested in realtime
democracy would include:

1.) CSV versions of the itemised municipal budget, with as much granular
detail as possible
2.) Machine readable versions of all reports, proposals, transcripts,
documents, and other records from council sittings (including sub-coms)
3.) Realtime access to unfiltered video / audio feeds of all council
sessions / sittings and other events
4.) CSV / machine readable versions of all tenders advertised, adjudicated,
and issued with as much granular detail as possible (+ retrospective)
5.) CSV / machine readable versions of municipal cadastral data, with shape
/ boundary data
6.) CSV / machine readable versions of contact directories for management
level council staff & the geo-areas / competencies they manage
7.) CSV / machine readable versions of all municipal legal notices,
including EIAs / land change use notices, licensing, etc
8.) CSV / machine readable versions of all municipal infrastructure / capex
development plans, with geo-data & other appropriate meta data
9.) CSV / machine readable versions of all municipal services, including
health, housing, sanitation, education, etc
10.) CSV / machine readable versions of the property roll (including all
council owned property)
11.) CSV / machine readable versions of all health inspection citations and
other records
12.) CSV / machine readable versions of all traffic / municipal police
citations or other incident / activity logs
13.) CSV / machine readable versions of all (granular) crime data available
to council, including from SAPS & pvt security companies
14.) CSV / machine readable versions of all datafeeds from CCTV and other
environmental sensors (air, water, sound, atmospheric, etc)
15.) Machine readable versions of contact directories (phone / email /
social media) for all elected councillors + all management echelon staff
16.) Machine readable versions of all declarations of interest / gifts /
association of all elected councillors + all management echelon staff
17.) Machine readable versions of all diaries / travel schedules / meeting
registers of all elected councillors + all management echelon staff
18.) Machine readable versions of the CVs / resumes of all elected
councillors + all management echelon staff
19.) Machine readable versions of the CVs / resumes of all consultants,
advisors, etc, working with council
20.) Machine readable versions of the records of disciplinary action /
blacklisting of staff, contractors, suppliers, consultants

This is a kinda broad trawl, probably skewed by my previous job as an
investigative journo, but I think the resulting data would allow people to
do everything from compare schools / clinics / neighbourhoods, to checking
health safety at restaurants, etc, to monitoring development & services,
participating in licensing / land use changes, and helping to keep
government honest & focused on residents' real needs.

I've probably overlooked some important or contextual stuff, so would be
interested to hear whether anyone else has other stuff to add.

Cheers,
Justin

Justin Arenstein*
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On 13 August 2013 23:06, Adi Eyal <adi at burgercom.co.za> wrote:

> Hi Robert
>
> Have you had a look on the StatsSA website for machine readable data?
> It's somewhat hidden and their interface is not fantastic, but have a
> look for SuperWeb. You can slice and dice data as you like and then
> download it in csv.
>
> Adi
>
> On 13 August 2013 13:22, Robert Elliott <robert at graphflow.com> wrote:
> > Hi Adi,
> >
> > It would be great to get the province's 2011 census data... in a usable
> > format, so not PDF.
> >
> > I think that data formatting may be a topic worth focussing in on,
> because
> > it isn't open if it is unusable.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Rob
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 10:05 AM, Greg Kempe <gregkempe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Adi,
> >>
> >> That's great news, do you have any further details on it, who's putting
> it
> >> together, how far along it is etc?
> >>
> >> I would like to get access to the property valuations roll for the City.
> >> It's ostensibly available online (in bits and pieces) as well as in the
> >> paper archives, so it's already public data, but not readily accessible
> in
> >> bulk.
> >>
> >> Greg
> >>
> >> On 13 August 2013 at 9:50:09 AM, Adi Eyal (adi at burgercom.co.za) wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi All
> >>
> >> The Western Cape Government as well as the City of Cape Town are
> >> currently working on an open data policy. Yay!
> >>
> >> We've decide that rather than writing the (possibly out of touch with
> >> reality) policy, we will first start to stress the system but seeing
> >> where the flaws are. Then the policy will be written in an iterative
> >> fashion in order to focus on the most important areas.
> >>
> >> I'm playing Mr Mission Impossible but trying to get data from both
> >> institutions and writing up the case studies in order to poke holes in
> >> their existing policies and capacity to respond to requests.
> >>
> >> I'm soliciting suggestions from you for what data you would like to
> >> get from the City/Province if you could. I have some ideas but it
> >> would be great to get the community behind it.
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >> Adi
> >>
> >> --
> >> Adi Eyal
> >> Data Specialist
> >> phone: +27 78 014 2469
> >> skype: adieyalcas
> >> linkedin: http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
> >>
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Adi Eyal
> Data Specialist
> phone: +27 78 014 2469
> skype: adieyalcas
> linkedin: http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
>
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