Democratic Accountability: Look at Lobbying

Thanks to the Great Emancipator we have seen a US view of “Government-wide Information Sharing for Democratic Accountability“.  The author, J.H. Snider, is suggesting using semantic web technology to monitor the connections between powerful politicians, public officials and lobbyists.  He points out that these techniques are used on the weaker members of society, but the powerful will cite privacy and cost for not applying the same methods on their activities. He recommends that the President’s transactions are monitored in detail as a showcase for monitoring Congress and executive relationships.  What are the chances of linking up data of the Prime Minister, Ministers, senior civil servants, leaders of councils and their suppliers of hospitality?

Well, there is the work going on in the Cabinet Office led cross-government information architecture.  They are attempting to use standards to provide interoperability between different departments and agencies.   Amongst these are the building of an “Upper Ontology for Operational Service Delivery” – perhaps this has the same intention as Snider’s “Who-What-When-Where ontology”.  The USA has a more accessible name for what may be the same thing.

It will take a long time, if ever, to develop a lobbying information system. Even though some MPs are calling for the establishment of a register it would eventually have to be linked to lots more sources of reliable data.

Where Quarkside differs from Snider is in the use of Global Unique Idenifiers (GUIDs).  They may think they have them in the USA, but it is not credible or politically acceptable in the UK. Reflecting back on a post from last year,

• A person does not need a Unique Identifier (UID).
• The Law does not demand a UID.
• Use just sufficient data to identify a person.

Openness in personal relationships can only built from an understanding of federated identity, multiple identities, not by demanding a UID.  The likes of Experian can do it – so could UK plc. Maybe Liam Maxwell could assist here. Maybe we could also publish information about political lobbying that would improve democratic accountability.

IDs for a UK Citizen Account

Quarkside has just heard of a way to solve the following problems:

• Benefits costs
• Under employed people
• Education maintenance allowance
• University living costs
• Basic pensions
• Enhanced pensions
• Recovering money for fines
• Health costs

It requires setting up a citizen account (UK citizens only) for EVERY citizen, including children. For sake of an abbreviation, we will call it the UK Citizen Account (UCA). The following rights are given, they are paid from taxation, without exception, into a freely spendable account (FSA).

• 0-16 child allowance, spendable by nominated parent or guardian
• 16-18 youth allowance, spendable by the young person
• 19-24 tertiary education allowance, spendable by the citizen
• 24-67 working age allowance
• 67-80 first pension
• 80+ second pension

Alongside the government input is personal input which is a proportion of taxable income.  This is a protected endowment account (PEA).  The main aim is to build up a personal fund that can be drawn down as housing, pension, health and mid-life education.  The nearest analogy is Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF).  It is a colonial legacy: ” When the Japanese Occupation ended in 1945, Singapore became a British colony again. Life was hard. People struggled to make ends meet. To ensure that workers could take care of themselves in their old age, the Central Provident Fund was set up as a compulsory savings scheme. ”

The benefits to the government are:

• Simplicity of administration – entitlements are universal, every citizen independent of other income
• Means tested benefits cease, such as housing benefit.
• Personal National Insurance (NI) contributions are paid into the PEA, like a compulsory personal insurance.
• Employers NI contributions are paid into the PEA as a percentage of taxable income.
• Debts to the government can be taken from the fund, eg fines, unpaid taxes.
• Choice by the citizen for medical treatment.  The tariffs are well documented.  A percentage is taken from the PEA for every access to NHS services – lower percentage for basic services (10%) – higher percentage for more expensive, private care provision (90%).
• Funding for infrastructure from accrued savings
• Funding for low cost housing by giving loans from accrued personal PEA savings
• Choice to use the PEA for adult education and retraining for new skills.   The Working Age Allowance is always paid to provide some basic income.

The benefits to the citizen are:

• Guaranteed untaxed income throughout life, whether working or not.
• Working will always be better than not working.
• Protected Fund, built up by work, for spending on housing, further education, pensions and health.
• Additional contributions from employers (including self-employed), interest on account and profits from fund investments.
• Opportunity to obtain a mortgage from funds accrued – commercial interest rates will be charged.
• Opportunity to pay for adult education or re-training.
• No risk of bankrupt or stolen pension funds.
• Choice to pay for care at home or residential homes.
• The residue on death forms part of the estate – not taken by the government.

The details can be sorted out, but it avoids the costly mistake of Universal Credits.  Such a total restructure of the welfare state means sacrificing sacred cows. Singapore now has a handle on social welfare costs, unlike the UK.  They have a successful economy.  Rationing of health costs is left to citizens and their families.

And the governance issue is: – citizens will need to have a trusted Identity,  without too many duplicates.  Perhaps this will be good enough to allow them to vote, too.

IG Assets: Data Quality and ISO 8000

 “Without trusted information government would have to exist on hunch and guesswork.”

The quotation above came from the Eurim report on “Improving the Evidence Base“.  It’s another way of saying that data quality matters.  Quality is an attribute of information assets, a primary dimension in the 7 Dimensional Information Governance framework (7DIG).  The Audit Commission provide the dimensions of data quality as:

• Accuracy – accurate enough for the intended purpose.
• Validity – recorded and used incompliance with relevant requirements.
• Reliability –  reflect stable and consistent data collection processes across collection points and over time.
• Timeliness – captured as quickly as possible after the event or activity and made available within a reasonable period of time.
• Relevance – relevant to the purposes for which it is to be used.
• Completeness – data requirements should be clearly specified based on the information needs of the body, and data collection processes matched to these requirements.

The now defunct Data Connects Forum also commissioned an excellent report on Data Quality Management. It has a framework which inspired the 7DIG framework.  A lot of work went into developing the detailed recommendations and supporting software tools.  However, as with the Eurim report, it is the work of a small group of professionals.  Neither refer to nor comply with any international standard.  ISO standards are produced by a wider body of people over long consultation period.  ISO standards have to be rigorously tested.

ISO 8000 is the Emerging Standard for Data Quality.  It has been many years in gestation with ISO TC184/SC4, the ISO subcommittee that looks after industrial data. However, it has been recognised from the start that this standard could have a much wider usage.  Should the UK Public Sector be interested?  Perhaps the Cabinet Office and LeGSB should keep an eye on progress, in case it could help to improve the quality of shared data.

IG Time: the spatio-temporal paradigm

Time is one dimension of the spatio-temporal paradigm – which has an underlying principle:

All Things exist in a universe of four dimensions, three of space and one of time.  

And a significant consequence:

All Things in the past and future can be defined, in addition to all Things in the present.

Adopting the 4D paradigm is useful in information management:

• The state of a Thing can be defined by the time between a start event and an end event.
• Things can have many states at any point in time.
• Relationships can be defined between any Things, and such relationships also have time dimensions.

These can be applied in the domain of the 7 Dimensional Information Governance framework (7DIG).  The seventh dimension considered, Time, is thus more than a clock and more than planning.  Time is one dimension of the Space-Time continuum; three dimensions of space and one of time.  7DIG framework is a model of concepts and the relationships between those concepts.  It is an ‘ontology’.  The Framework has attempted to develop a shared vocabulary and definition of concepts.  Unfortunately these concepts have been called dimensions and sub-dimensions.  In retrospect, another set of words may have been better to avoid possible confusion.

The 7DIG Time dimension applies to all the other six dimensions of the 7DIG framework ie Objectives, Assets, People, Outcomes, Process and Risk.  Every single sub-dimension can have the question asked ‘When?’.

Many thanks to Matthew West for providing the academic background. Expect more postings on some practical aspects of Time in relation to information governance