The Anonymous Widower

We Need More Openness Everywhere

This story from the BBC is a big dose of common sense from MPs. Here’s the jist.

Councils in England should publish annual parking-charge accounts if they want to prove they are not being used as a “cash cow”, MPs have said.

I think we need much better access to all government data.

Here’s a few ideas.

If you run a company, as I’ve done several times, you have to publish a set of simple accounts, including things like cash flows and a profit and loss statement.

Why shouldn’t the government publish such a brief set of accounts, which the man on the Dalston Omnibus could understand?

But of course they don’t!

Some years ago, I tried to find the data to do create some simple accounts for UK plc.  The data is there, but it is in several different places and despite help from a BBC financial journalist, I thought I had better things to do, than dig holes in treacle.

I would also like to see an anonymised database of those who are in prison. A man like me would be described as male, 60-70 in reasonable health, who was a non-smoker living in North London.

It would allow those, who make wild statements about prisons to be challenged and hopefully, it would lead to better justice and penal policies.

I must admit, that it has got a lot better in recent years with the growth of the Internet, but too often, data that would help us to have better lives is hidden from view.

The NHS is one of the worst for hiding data.  There has been a lot of discussion about A & E units in recent years.  Surely, a database should be available on the Internet, of all visits to this department. Again, it would be anonymised.

It would then be easy to find out for instance, how many drunks turned up at various hospitals demanding treatment.

The trouble is, that a national database in this area of the NHS, would show how A & E departments should change to get fit for the twenty-first century. Some would be obvious candidates for closure, whereas others would need to be expanded with special units.

As Charles Babbage said

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

Give everybody the data, so that we can all finish the job!

You don’t make a good omelette without breaking a few eggs.

y

October 23, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Computing, News | Information, Internet, Politics, Statistics