[open-government] Call for Collaboration: publicbodies.org

Mon Jul 4 14:46:14 UTC 2011

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 12:02 AM, Friedrich Lindenberg
<friedrich.lindenberg at okfn.org> wrote:
> As a big fan of OpenCorporates approach on companies, I'd like to
> propose the creation of a copycat service at publicbodies.org -
> perhaps with less entity metadata but as an endpoint for
> reconciliation of public bodies.
Great idea!

> * Does such a service already exist?
Perhaps to some extent in the Libraries/Archives world? The National
Library of Australia for example has linked data on organisations and
people eg. http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/458265?q=Department+of+Defence&c=people
They have some APIs to get at that data for machines:
https://wiki.nla.gov.au/display/ARDCPIP/National+Library+of+Australia+APIs

> * Which countries and admin regions publish (machine-readable) lists
> of public bodies, departments etc.?
Australia at the federal level has a creative commons licenced
database... going back to 1901 explaining how agencies changed to what
they are today - overkill ;)
http://data.gov.au/dataset/commonwealth-agencies/

However it hasn't been updated since 2009 according to that site and
new agencies like Department of Regional Australia have been created
since then. Good starting point to see what this data looks like
though.

> * Which identifier schemes/taxonomies exist for the classification of
such entities?
The definitive list (but not machine readable) in Australia is
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/flipchart/docs/FMACACFlipchart.pdf

Entities are divided both on portfolio (defence, health, finance etc.)
and by entity type (FMA = government departments/agencies ie.
public/civil servants, CAC = government authorities/state owned
companies). There would probably also need to be a classification for
levels/jurisdiction of entity (National, State, Local).