Abstract
This chapter provides a picture of some issues that should be considered during the design and implementation of open-government initiatives, based on the analysis of four Italian case studies at the sub-national level. Specific attention is given to the contextual rigidities which may jeopardise the implementation process, in contrast to the opportunities provided by the use of ICTs. The study suggests that the availability of open data may allow greater autonomy to the public institution wishing to develop a certain tool to support policy-making or public services provision. Where the relevant data are ‘non-open’, the institution needs to foster cooperation with the subjects, be they public or private, who hold the data. Open data therefore reduce the coordination costs of these initiatives. On the other hand, whenever implementation requires cooperation among different administrations, the willingness to collaborate needs to be verified and promoted, and not taken for granted. The commitment of the individuals at the apex of the leading organisations is also confirmed as critical for the overall success of the initiative. These cases also suggest that open government may support higher effectiveness of public services provision through a better understanding of citizens’ needs. This can lead to the co-definition of such needs, and not only—as in most forms of current public engagement—of the answers to those needs. An additional benefit relates to the possibility of enhancing also the effectiveness of these answers, as they become more modular.
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From Open Definition, v.1.1, url: http://opendefinition.org/okd/.
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Such as www.patientopinion.org.uk and www.theyworkforyou.com.
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Including www.fixmystreet.com and www.ratemyschool.net.
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The authors are aware that direct involvement may cause the risk of a biased perspective. On the other hand, it is also a way to avoid conventional rhetoric, and observe actual practices of action and interaction which substantiate design and implementation processes.
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Data on services’ consumers do exist (for instance the list and names of all the children attending a specific nursery) but they are collected and stored using various and diverse means, software programmes or even paper, so that no integrated and comprehensive dataset or data source is available. This explains the need to estimate services consumption information.
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In the case of Magenta, the original plan was to create a data warehouse that was not publicly available, and this objective did not evolve over the course of the project, as was the case, for instance, of Piedmont.
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Trivellato, B., Boselli, R., Cavenago, D. (2014). Design and Implementation of Open-Government Initiatives at the Sub-National Level: Lessons from Italian Cases. In: Gascó-Hernández, M. (eds) Open Government. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 4. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9563-5_5
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