[open-government] Benefit and arguments for open gov data in small local governments

[Jason Kitcat]

Hi Martin

When I'm not working for OKF I'm involved in local government as an elected councillor.

In my view open data at the local level is really useful for improving partnership working between public sector bodies (e.g. Fire, Police, Health). With open data they are better able to address joint needs and joint cost bases.

They can also benefit from apps which they couldn't develop themselves. For example publishing a CSV of the days when recycling is collected is a low cost activity. But someone could turn that into an app which reminds people by SMS or email when to put their recycling out for collection. This improves recycling rates which benefits the local government body responsible.


All the best,
Jason

On 22 Jun 2011, at 13:54, Martin Kaltenböck wrote:

> Hi all (and sorry for cross-posting)
> 
> in the course the OGD2011 conference last week in Vienna, Austria (see: http://www.ogd2011.at) 
> we had a discussion about:
> 
> - what are the main benefits of / arguments for open (government) data in (very) small local governments (small town, village, small municipality)
> 
> Anyone having good arguments for this?
> We do have about ~ 3.700 municipalities in Austria - and most of them are very, very small
> So we are collecting arguments & benefits for open data to convince them...
> 
> Many thanks for input on this!!
> 
> Cheers - martin
> 
> 
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