Having worked extensively with technology projects in Government for many years, the number one rule is that technology needs to be three things: secure, scalable and sovereign. With that in mind, it may seem counter-intuitive to be taking a so-called ‘open-source approach’ to the technological tools and platforms being developed in certain departments, which involves making these tools openly available. Though open-source software projects have come on leaps and bounds since the early days, and have become standard at many levels of the enterprise tech stack, the term is still sometimes viewed with scepticism due to the ability for anyone to freely access, distribute and modify such software. Not something you’d associate with the tightly controlled approach to public sector and particularly central government technology. However, there is a way in which public sector departments can engage with the open-source mindset for significant benefit. With so many innovative projects going on in different departments, addressing some of technology’s most complex technological and data environments, making technological innovations open source can actually enable a more joined-up and seamless approach to government data strategy. Allow me to explain, based on my team’s recent experience on a large scale data quality project for a central government department.

Developing new tools within government takes a lot of work and a lot of code. For the department and (in our case) the technical consultants who have developed the tools, it certainly seems counter intuitive to release this all publicly. But in reality, the code is not your capital, the expertise in knowing how best to use and apply these tools is. You are not losing anything, in fact you are opening up a world of opportunity. Making your tool open source simply provides the opportunity for a wider pool of public sector entities to explore its use case in their environments. Many tools in the public sector are built on open industry standards, but the expertise is key.

Standardisation

With greater sharing of open tools across the public sector, there is more opportunity for standardisation in each department’s approach to issues such as data quality. This all ladders up to breaking down the silos that have developed across government, and ensures we’re not reinventing the wheel. This process will also be much faster, helping the government keep pace with rapidly evolving technological innovations and data challenges. Successful projects in one department can be rapidly replicated in new ones using the publicly available code. Additionally, for example, complex data quality rules developed in one area can also be made available on a sharing marketplace, meaning new projects are not beginning from a standing start. 

Sharing data, tools and expertise

One of the roadblocks to data and technology sharing across departments are differing levels of expertise, skills, and access to technology skills. By making tools open source, marketing the tools across departments, and spreading that expertise, the process of data sharing will be more effective. 

The impact of this cannot be overstated. One of the government’s key aims with the Data Sharing Governance Framework is to improve data use and sharing to deliver better services and outcomes for businesses and people. The goals are ambitious, and the vision for seamless sharing of personal data across government departments requires overcoming a number of technical roadblocks, particularly the range of incompatible systems and siloed approaches that need joining up. Putting in place the process to share data is one thing, but the effective and joined-up usage of that data will only be successful if the right tools are in place, shared, and openly available. The data needs to be approached and analysed in the same, standardised way, or departments could come to the wrong conclusions about that data. With broader sharing of new tools and approaches to augment the sharing of data, these goals will be more effectively achieved.

A great example of open sourcing technological tools in government has been the development and proliferation of Splink, originally developed by the Ministry of Justice, for data record linkage. Built with central government requirements at its heart and designed to be able to deal with the vast and complex datasets of the MoJ, the potential gain for other departments is significant. By making this entire package free and available on GitHub, this functionality is open for further innovation and usage across government.

From our own perspective, making tools open source has been incredibly useful, as we’re able to translate existing work into new projects across the departments we work with, but from the above you can also see the huge potential for central government itself. Public sector technology leaders should seriously consider the benefits of utilising open source platforms to more effectively achieve the benefits of data and technology sharing, but that is just the first step. As we’ve seen with the Splink example, communicating and marketing these open tools across central government makes a big difference in uptake and adoption. There are vast amounts of innovation occurring all across UK central government departments, and we’ve seen a real openness for modern solutions to unique challenges. If you’re interested in finding out more and how 6point6 can help, click here: Central government departments – 6point6