77PUBLIC SECTOR DIGEST WINTER 2015

While there is a broad consensus on its value to the public, asset management tests all decision-makers as they try to meet high community expectations. Developed by the Public Sector Digest (PSD), the objective of the Roadmap is to guide municipalities in establishing, and then continuously improving, their asset management practice and strategy. It disaggregates the many core components involved in asset management and infrastructure planning, in order that individual tasks or activities can be addressed. PSD will work with municipalities through each of these components, including condition assessment protocols, risk and criticality models, lifecycle management, the financial strategy, and levels of service framework. Technology will continue to produce potentially invaluable streams of data. Mining this data for insights, and then integrating and aligning these insights with departmental and corporate objectives is what The Asset Management Roadmap is all about. It’s based on over 250 software implementations, completion of 120 asset management plans, rigorous literature research into international best practices and standards, and countless collaborative discussions with senior executives and elected leadership.

THE PSD ASSET MANAGEMENT ROADMAP INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY FOR CAOs, FINANCE, AND PUBLIC WORKS

To learn more about the Roadmap and our intake schedule, contact our infrastructure advisory team at infrastructure@publicsectordigest.com.

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PUBLIC SECTOR DIGESTI N T E L L I G E N C E F O R T H E P U B L I C S E C T O R .

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 1

pen government is quickly becoming a strategic priority of

municipalities across North America as the public’s

expectation grows for greater transparency and

accountability in the public sector. Open data is one central

pillar of any open government strategy, but for most

municipalities, it remains the most challenging to address. Open data programs

require at least basic technical skills for proper implementation, as well as some

sort of investment in a technology or program for hosting data. As a result,

open data places a greater demand on the human and financial capacity of

municipal government than most other elements of an open government

strategy.

O

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 2

Early wins are required in order to

demonstrate the value of open data and

secure buy-in from council and senior

management.

With limited time and resources, municipalities must strategically develop their open data programs. Early

wins are required in order to demonstrate the value of open data and secure buy-in from council and

senior management. In partnership with Canada’s Open Data Exchange (ODX), Public Sector Digest

launched the Open Cities Index to provide municipal governments with a yardstick against which they can

measure their progress in launching and advancing their open data initiatives. The Open Cities Index not

only identifies the precise areas for improvement for each municipality’s open data program, but it also

allows municipalities to track their progress and communicate those results to staff, council, and the public.

The 2015 Open Cities Index Report includes a review of the performance of the top ten cities, as well as an

analysis of the state of municipal open data initiatives across Canada.

The Open Cities Index The Open Cities Index has been created as a supplementary guide for cities looking to initiate or advance

their open data programs. Until now, Canada’s municipalities have lacked a reference point for the

performance of their open data programs. After surveying 34 of Canada’s largest cities to determine the

number and quality of municipal data sets available to the public, PSD launched the first iteration of the

Open Cities Index in 2015. The Open Cities Index benchmarks each of its 34 municipalities on 107 variables,

providing a detailed comparison of open data programs across regions and provinces/territories. The Open

Cities Index measures the readiness, implementation, and impact of the participating cities’ open data

initiatives.

1) Readiness

To what extent is the municipality ready/capable of fostering positive outcomes through its

open data initiative?

2) Implementation

To what extent has the city fulfilled its open data goals and ultimately, what data has it posted

online?

3) Impact

To what extent has the posted information been used, what benefits has the city accrued as a

result of its open data program, and to what extent is the city capable of measuring the

impact?

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 3

The implementation section of the Index consists of three types of data sets that cities may have made

available to the public: Accountability, Innovation, and Social Policy. The Accountability cluster includes data

sets related to government finance and elections like government budget data and election data. The

Innovation cluster includes data sets related to government operations like traffic volumes and service

requests. Finally, the Social Policy cluster includes data sets related to outcomes for a community like crime

rates and health performance. Across each type of data set, municipalities were scored on five variables:

1) Is the data available online?

2) Is the data machine readable?

3) Is the data available for free?

4) Is the data up to date?

5) Or is the data unavailable?

A meaningful and comprehensive open data program will include up to date data sets that are available

online for free in a format that is machine readable, facilitating the analysis and reuse of data by the general

public and developers.

The Top Ten With open data being a relatively new responsibility for municipal governments, limited progress has been

made in most communities in Canada to launch or advance open data portals or initiatives. The Open Cities

Index Top Ten are trailblazers, working to develop the most efficient and effective open data programs

despite limited resources. These ten cities are starting to see the benefits of making municipal data available

to the public, including not only enhanced transparency and civic engagement, but also the generation of

local economic development as developers use the municipal data to create powerful apps.

Open Cities Index 2015 Top Ten

1) EDMONTON

2) TORONTO

3) SURREY

4) OTTAWA

5) LONDON

6) VANCOUVER

7) CALGARY

8) WINDSOR

9) OAKVILLE

10) MONTREAL

151 146

131 126

110 11097

9185 81

0

50

100

150

Open Cities Index 2015 Top Ten Raw Scores (based on max score of 193)

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 4

For 2015, the city that emerged at the top of the Open Cities Index was Edmonton, followed by Toronto

and Surrey rounding out the top three. These cities have placed open data at the centre of their strategies

to open up government, while providing the private sector with valuable data for analysis and reuse.

Edmonton received a score of 78% overall for its open data program, with strong performance in the

Readiness category (73%) and with the highest score under the Implementation sub-category of Innovation

(89%). From government spending data to zoning data (GIS), Edmonton has made a wide variety of its data

available to the public online, with most sets being free, up to date, and machine readable.

Similarly, Toronto has made great strides in posting municipal data sets from a wide variety of

departments/operations. With the highest score under the Implementation sub-category of Social Policy

(83%), Toronto is leading the way in making data sets available related to program outcomes in the

community, including health and education performance data.

Leading the pack under the Accountability sub-category of Implementation is the City of Ottawa, scoring

95% and coming in fourth overall in the Open Cities Index for 2015. From budget data to lobbyist

information, Ottawa has made Accountability data sets a priority in its open data program.

Open Cities Index 2015 Top Ten Scores by Category (Accountability, Innovation, and Social Policy are sub-categories

of Implementation)

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 5

Municipalities are struggling to accurately

measure the impact and outcomes of their

open data programs.

National Trends It is evident from the results of the 2015 Open Cities Index that most Canadian cities have significant work to

do to advance their open data programs. The overall average score for the 34 participating municipalities

was 25% for 2015. The greatest room for improvement can be seen under the Impact category of the Index

with an overall average score of 29%. Municipalities are struggling to accurately measure the impact and

outcomes of their open data programs. Some cities, however, have reported operational cost savings as a

result of their open data programs. With the public able to access municipal data directly online, some

municipalities have measured significant reductions in requests for information, saving the city time and

money. Others have been able to proactively generate local economic development in their communities

via hackathons. A hackathon, whether organized by the city itself or a community partner, can help to

promote the use of open data for the creation of apps and programs that benefit the community as a

whole, such as a transit tracking app or a participatory budgeting app.

Municipalities fared slightly better under the Implementation category with a national average score of 35%.

The strongest showing was under the sub-category of Accountability (50% national average score), with

more municipalities publishing data relating to government budgets, spending, and elections. As

expectations grow for enhanced transparency and accountability in the public sector, the demand for these

types of data sets will also grow. Social Policy is by far the weakest sub-category with a national average of

21%. These types of data sets can be more difficult to come by, with several levels of government

potentially sharing responsibility for data gathering, for example with health performance being heavily tied

to provincial jurisdictions. Social Policy data sets may also contain more sensitive information about

individuals, requiring more work on the part of the municipality to ensure anonymity where required.

Municipalities performed the best overall under the Readiness category of the Index with a national average

score of 41%. The first step in launching an open data program is to identify a team lead and start building

organizational capacity for program implementation. With many communities across Canada, both large

and small, starting to assign the open data portfolio to a department or team, the readiness of Canada’s

cities to tackle open data challenges and opportunities is improving. The Top Ten cities are one step ahead

with many having an open data lead and budgets set aside for technology, training, and even community

outreach.

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 6

Final Insights When governments proactively post meaningful data online three things happen. First, efficiencies

externally, internally, and interdepartmentally arise. As open data begins to break down the silos that exist

within government, this improves the effectiveness of city programs, departments, and applications.

Second, new infomediary firms and markets are created once government agencies release information.

With open data released to the market, government bodies will not likely see an immediate direct benefit.

This is a medium to long term strategy that seeks indirect impacts, efficiencies, cost savings, and the tax

revenue that is generated from downstream collaboration.

Finally, those very firms and markets will begin to produce new products and services, helping to solve

essential community problems, all using the data that was posted online. The catch is, when data is posted

online, it must be free, machine readable, and up to date. Without those three attributes, the data cannot

be used to build the most robust applications.

Canada’s Top Ten cities in the Open Cities Index have taken the lead in launching open data initiatives

without a proven template or roadmap to follow. These trailblazers will continue to build their open data

programs, experimenting with new processes, technologies, and policies to ensure that the greatest value

for money is achieved, all while continuing to enhance transparency and accountability. Cities just starting

to look at open data as a priority in 2016 can learn from the best practices of the Open Cities Index Top

Ten, applying lessons learned to the unique fiscal and organizational environment of their respective

municipal governments.

OPEN CITIES INDEX REPORT 2015 7

I N T E L L I G E N C E F O R T H E P U B L I C S E C T O R .

Participating in the Open Cities Index In 2016, PSD and ODX will work with participating Canadian municipalities and the private sector to improve

the standardization of municipal open data benchmarking, as well as facilitate national discussion around

emerging trends and challenges within municipal open data. PSD has already launched the Open Cities

Index online benchmarking tool that allows municipalities to compare open data initiatives across Canada.

Cities can benchmark their open data programs across categories by region and population. The interactive

tool is designed so that cities can monitor their progress from year to year and identify targeted areas for

improvement.

“ODX is especially pleased to partner with the Open Cities Index for the first study of its kind to benchmark

Canada’s municipal open data initiatives” said Kevin Tuer, Managing Director of ODX, an Open Cities Index

partner. “We want municipalities to analyze how they collect and disseminate data, what frameworks to use

and how the cost compares to the potential return. For some, the question will be ‘How can we perform

better than our neighbours?’ For others it will be simply ‘Where do we begin?’ The Open Cities Index will

serve to not only bolster the supply of open data, but also assist the entrepreneur and Canadian cities to

qualify and quantify the impact of open data driven products and solutions.”

Cities interested in being included in the Open Cities Index and accessing a detailed analysis of municipal

open data programs across Canada can contact PSD for further details.

www.publicsectordigest.com

519.690.2565

Tyler Sutton, Editor & Research Lead

tsutton@publisectordigest.com

John Chiappetta, Open Data Lead

jchiappetta@publicsectordigest.com

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