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Determining what data is in your city’s best interests to control, being able to prioritise value over quantity, and being able to respond agilely within council to new opportunities as they arise requires a depth of understanding in key business areas across the administration.
Some larger cities have been able to invest in their data and digital resources with strategic leads in place and governance strategies well-evolved. Others are less able to invest and could benefit from a more collaborative approach. Working out what data your city owns, what it wants to control or manage, and what it would prefer others to manage is key to getting optimum value from your data.
G20:
There’s no place like the top, and so it is worth mentioning the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance and its newly launched Open Data Model policy. OASC was pleased to be a founding partner of the Alliance which was launched at the G20 in Japan in 2019 ‘around a shared set of principles for the responsible and ethical use of smart city technologies’. The G20 GSCA adopted this Open Data Model Policy in 2020.
London
London is a good example of a city that has had the capacity to invest from the top down - with a Chief Digital Officer and team to support a strategic approach as well as a city-wide resource to wrangle data - the London Office of Technology and Innovation - a collaboration between London governments that offers a range of resources available for others to use.
The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions
The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions provides a prime example of what smaller cities can do when they collaborate, combining their resources to create a governance structure and infrastructure to support their shared open data goals. The work is in the context of a root and branch approach taken by the Swedish government nationally, and reflects a deep integration of open data principles.
Smart Flanders Checklist
Smart Flanders checklist is an excellent place to start if you are looking to understand what might be missing from your city approach. Both pragmatic and comprehensive, it addresses all the key elements for a city looking to open its data as part of a smart city strategy. If you are looking for something a little more detailed, the Smart Flanders Open Data Charter might fit the bill.
Smart Flanders Checklist https://smart.flanders.be/kennis-en-instrumenten/checklist
Eindhoven Smart Society IoT Charter
Eindhoven’s smart society IoT charter provides a clear set of principles to support cities in adhering to values when working with data from external sources and all that cities subsequently do in the data economy.
https://data.eindhoven.nl/explore/dataset/eindhoven-smart-society-iot-charter/information/
Cities that have previously invested may find themselves in vendor lock-in for specific services without the financial wherewithal to drive a new back-at-base path - and are therefore looking for ways to reroute data, or wrap legacy systems with less costly cloud-based interfaces.
CITYxCITY Catalogue
CITYxCITY Catalogue offers a springboard into an array of solutions compiled by cities for cities, or products and tools that can help with your city’s data infrastructure needs.
Cities have reported being relatively deskilled when it comes to the detail of data manipulation - often contracting out the task to third parties like learning institutions; while this works for some, others want to take a more nuanced approach - ensuring in-house staff have a range of both technical and strategic data skills to enable a varied approach dependent upon the context.
CITYxCITY Academy
Free online learning resources on data, data-driven innovation and tech for cities. https://citybycity.academy/
Smart Flanders Checklist
Starting with the Flanders checklist might help to develop your own data maturity model.
CITYxCITY Catalogue
Be sure to check out what is available on the CITYxCITY Catalogue.
Being able to purchase services linked to data is a specialism in itself and one that all but the larger cities can typically afford. Smaller cities, in particular, struggle to come up to par when buying this level of expertise. Collective solutions, from which smaller towns and cities can benefit, are beginning to emerge. Consider reaching out to cities that have already achieved good results.
London's LOTI Innovation in Procurement toolkit
CITYxCITY Academy:
Free online learning resources on data, data-driven innovation and tech for cities. https://citybycity.academy/
To negotiate with commercial partners
Commercial negotiations are never easy and cities tend to be at a disadvantage as their legal teams are generally not focused on this type of deal. Yet there is hope; cities can learn from innovators and the possibility of pooling wisdom is tantalising.
While the following are just two examples, OASC is looking for ways to broaden cases and support for cities in negotiating with commercial service providers for shared data. Watch this space.
The City of Lisbon
The City of Lisbon is one such authority that has successfully negotiated to receive data from a corporate provider (in relation to a city bike scheme), as part of its urban data platform.
The City of Ghent
The City of Ghent also successfully negotiated to receive data from waste contractors to tackle fly-tipping.
Broadly, these challenges can be classified into the ongoing issues cities have in managing their data resource, including a focus on internal challenges, and in working with partners, citizens and other cities, such as:
Strategy and insights go hand in hand and, for cities that have outsourced data management, they are often caught in a defined loop of insights production - unable to vary the demands without cost implications. The power of data is in the insights it can bring, particularly when integrated with more than one source, and cities want to have more flexibility in understanding highly complex issues through different lenses.
A number of companies, large and small, offer a range of tools that support analysis and insights - either in domain-specific areas or across a range of city data.
CITYxCITY Catalogue
Be sure to check out what is available on the CITYxCITY Catalogue.