Plenary Council 25th November 2019

Motion: That given the recognised contribution of Open Data for efficiency in delivery of services, innovation, the creation of new business models and public participation, Kildare County Council develops a policy on Open Data that strengthens its participation in the Governments Open Data initiative, the policy would have a specific initial focus on the delivery of all environmental datasets requested by council or members of the public thereby supporting climate action initiatives, learning and innovation. 
Cllrs Vanessa Liston, Vincent P. Martin

Report: The ‘Open Data Officer’ is based in the IT department in Kildare County Council and both he and his colleagues in IT have been involved in a number of open data initiatives and have provided the detail below. 

We are aware of the legal onus on Kildare County Council as set out in the Open Data and PSI Directive (Directive 2013/37/EU) (The Directive was recast on 20 June 2019) and its transposed Irish Statutory Instruments S.I. No. 279/2005, S.I No. 103/2008, and S.I. No. 525/2015, and related Circulars. 

Currently, Kildare County Council have published Open Data sets to the National Open data platform, DATA.GOV.IE as part of their commitment to the Public Service Data Strategy 2019-2023. 

Members of the IT team have attended Open Data Seminars organised by the Department of Public Expenditure. A member of staff will be attending the ‘Annual Open Data Conference’ on Wednesday 27 of November 2019. Members of the IT Team have participated in Open Data Training organised by the Department of Public Expenditure and training organised by the EU. 

Kildare County Council is engaged with the Open Data Technical Framework and has published the following open data sets;

https://data.gov.ie/organization/kildare-county-council
Kildare Libraries 
Kildare Scenic Routes 
Kildare Poll Places 
Kildare Scenic Views 
Kildare Fire Stations 
Kildare Landscape Character Areas 
Kildare Recreation Areas 
Kildare Accessible Parking 
Kildare County Council Buildings 
Kildare Poll Districts 

Kildare County Council encourage engagement from all sections with regards to improving data quality and making it Open data compliant and have reached out to staff in all sections of the council in this regard. 

Kildare County Council acknowledge the value of all Open data and public sector information to drive transformation within Kildare and we welcome the initiative to develop the Open data resource further in Kildare County Council. 

Regarding environmental data, Kildare County Council shares environmental data with the EPA through the EDEN portal. If there are datasets that the council manage and do not share with the EPA, we are happy to assist the Environment Section to publish these datasets. 

Issued by: Mr R Hopkins, Head of Information Systems 

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Follow up: Following discussion and my request, this issue will be referred to the Protocols and Procedures Committee in order to develop a process for providing all data relevant to the general public in an open and easily accessible format.