London Data Commission - Our Proposals
Convene a London Data Board to drive progress
Responsibility for data sits across several layers of London’s government, making leadership and accountability difficult. In addition, there is insufficient engagement by the private sector in city-wide datasharing to solve the capital’s challanges. The spirit of theLondon Data Commission, which brought together public, private and third sector organisations, now needs to be reflected in the governance of data in London.
The London Data Board will convene London’s government, the private sector, academic and research institutions and the third sector, and will provide the core
leadership of the Data for London framework.
The London Data Board will have four core aims:
- Deliver data driven insights: Boosting the use of data currently available in London and supporting the creation of an internationally leading city data platform to bring together anonymised data from the public, private and third sector to deliver clearer insights into the city’s challenges.
- Build trust: Safeguarding the anonymity and security of data from individuals, businesses and groups via a London Data Charter that helps maintain the highest standards of data management and transparency.
- Harness new technologies: Promoting the use cases and testing of new data technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twinning, blockchain and analytics, and helping ensure these innovations benefit all Londoners.
- Be a strong coherent voice: Providing a voice for London in discussions with government and other cities about how cities can benefit from the use of their data. The London Data Board will have oversight of the LondonDatastore and will support its development as a critical asset for the capital. It will also provide a forum to explore
the impact of disruptive innovation.
Why do we need this?
The London Data Board will help create a data-led approach to meeting London’s challenges to deliver more targeted interventions and better allocation of resources both citywide and locally.
How do we make it happen?
The London Data Board is an evolution of the Smart London Board. It would be held accountable to Londoners by the London Assembly.
It would be chaired by the Chief Digital Officer for London, and co-chaired by a senior business leader capable of speaking to the general business interest of London. We suggest London First is the proxy co-chair, with the ability to appoint a senior business leader to the role with the relevant experience and expertise.
The London Data Board should remain compact to ensure efficient operations and include the Director of the London Office for Technology Innovation (LOTI) and relevant central government representatives as well as individuals and organisations across private, public and NGO sectors with strong experience in data-sharing and analysis.
Establish the first London Data Charter to guide organisations in how they share data
The spirit of the London Data Commission is to galvanise the private sector to embark on data-sharing collaborations. We propose that the London Data Board establish a London Data Charter, to serve two purposes:
- To create commitment from signatories to be a part of London’s data ecosystem, by opening and sharing their data.
- To define the collaboration and data-sharing principles for public and private sector organisations in London.
The London Data Charter would be a statement of intent that organisations, both public and private, can adopt to show their commitment to open data and data-sharing to solve London’s biggest challenges. We envisage the London Data Charter as a one page document that:
- Articulates its objective and scope
- Explains the commitment a signee undertakes.
- Defines data-sharing and collaboration principles.
Why do we need this?
The London Data Charter will both improve cooperation among data owners and encourage new data-sharing initiatives as well as create more efficiency in data collection and sharing. This will result in more innovative data-led approaches to solving London’s toughest challenges, undertaken in a way that safeguard’s their security and privacy to the highest standards. This will result in more innovative data-led approaches to solving London’s toughest challenges.
Put simply, this will ultimately help London’s Government to function more effectively and efficiently, and provide better outcomes for its citizens.
How do we make it happen?
Once created the London Data Board will consult widely to agree the statement of intent and data-sharing principles that signatories would be willing to adopt. Key elements of the London Data Charter are outlined elsewhere on this page.
The London Data Charter: To be adopted by public and private organisations to participate in data and insights sharing.
Objective
Establish commitment to sharing aggregated and anonymised data in line with the data-sharing principles to generate insights that solve the critical challenges facing London.
Suggested responsibilities
- Ensure accountability by creating a dedicated organisational role to manage data-sharing and collaboration
- Develop an organisational action plan to review and monitor delivery on a regular basis
- Support data-sharing collaboration initiated by London Data Board
Data-sharing principles
Deliver Benefit for Londoners
Strive to resolve important societal challenges and deliver useful insights value to that will help citizens of London
Drive Innovation
Support London to create an environment that allows data innovation to thrive
Protect Privacy
Ensure personal information is protected when sharing and collaborating
Share Learnings with Others
Disclose learnings from collaboration to enable continuous improvement and better data-sharing
Create Scalable and Sustainable Solutions
Aim to develop long term solutions that can scale up or down to suit different contexts, making data initiatives reusable and ongoing where realistic
Be as Open as Possible
Make insights and, where feasible, data from collaborative initiatives as open as possible
Launch Data Innovation Challenges that help solve our biggest issues
Recognising the advances in the application of data and smart technologies in 2018 the Mayor of London
launched annual Civic Innovation Challenges. Designed to make London a global test bed for civic innovation, the challenges encourage start-ups to collaborate with leading corporates and public organisations to tackle some of London’s most pressing problems. Several challenges have been run looking as at a range of areas from active travel to tackling loneliness.
We propose that this programme evolves into annual London Data Innovation Challenges overseen by the London Data Board. These will be a series of series of annual data-sharing pilots that draw on data sets from public and private organisations in London to solve citywide challenges.
Why do we need this?
The Data Innovation Challenges will follow the practical approach of the Mayor’s Civic Innovations. The challenge programmes encourage collaboration between the public and private sector to test solutions in the field. Ultimately the goal is to find new and better ways of delivering public services. The Mayor’s London Recovery Board, setup to respond to COVID-19, has recently announced a set of missions to guide the program. The London Data Commissions’ data-sharing pilots map closely to the objectives as the Recovery Board missions: for example, the Digital Skills
pilot is aligned with the mission of Digital Access for All, the EV charging infrastructure pilot falls under the Green New Deal mission, and Digital Neighbourhood pilot is aligned with 15-minute Cities.
How do we make it happen?
The London Data Commission has started four datasharing pilots to demonstrate the value of private and public sector collaboration: digital skills provision, electric vehicle infrastructure, overcoming barriers to creating smart neighbourhoods, and supporting the GLA/Alan Turing Institute COVID-19 busyness heatmap. We envision that the London Data Board would evolve these pilots into annual London Data Innovation Challenges and other data collaboration efforts.
To demonstrate the feasibility of potential future Data Innovation Challenges the London Data Commission has initiated a series of data-sharing pilots to explore key challenges facing London.
Find new ways to Collaborate With Others, within London, nationally and internationally
The London Data Commission has highlighted the importance of collaboration, both across the city and beyond. Given many of the challenges the London Data Commission is seeking to address through open data and data-sharing are not unique to London, the new London Data Board should collaborate with other cities, both nationally and internationally.
As a core principle of its operations the London Data Board should share learning and seek input and advice from other cities and regions, both nationally and internationally.
The London Data Board should seek to collaborate with other cities on areas which include:
- Insights on the subject matter of data-sharing projects and challenges (e.g. how to map digital skills).
- Learnings on the approach to convening organisations, technical methodology and tools to share data.
- Communication with cities’ communities to reflect on the benefits of user experiences.
- Sharing experiences and understanding of new technologies and their implication on data-sharing.
We acknowledge that London’s data holding public bodies are working within a complex framework of federated governance and diverse data policies. The London Data Board will see to work with all public bodies to help support collaboration and data-sharing across London’s boroughs, public agencies, police authorities, health bodies and other relevant partners.
Why do we need this?
London can build on the pioneering work of other places and plays its part in supporting other cities in their recovery and growth. How do we make it happen? The London Data Board with the support of the private sector and organisation like London First will evolve into the vehicle for collaborating with other cities, and make use of existing formal peer networks such M8 group of Metro Mayors, C40; Core Cities and international networks such as GCoM and Bloomberg Cities Network. In the meantime, London First will roadshow the learnings from the London Data Commission with its Growing Together partners in cities and metro-regions around the UK.
