The Ministry of Justice has listed 43 unpublished data-sets that could be opened up for public use.
It is part of a public consultation on the National Information Infrastructure (NII), a new initiative for improving government data.
The government is currently identifying which datasets should be included. For the MoJ, these include case management systems, language services information, custodial data and much more [listed below]. So far there is next to no feedback on these.
If you think these would be valuable open data sets, you need to create a data.gov.uk profile if you don’t already have one, and ‘add feedback’ under the dataset you’re interested in. You’ll be asked how opening the data will be beneficial to society/ the economy/public services etc. and to give some [public] comments.
That would probably also be the place to raise any concerns or suggestions about the way in which the data should be released.
Thanks to Max Froumentin at the MoJ for alerting me to this.
The unpublished datasets (listed alphabetically)
- CHASE: Database for tracking and monitoring ministerial correspondence
- CREST Case management system for Crown Court cases
- CasPER The Official Solicitor and Public Trustee Case Management System
- Care Monitoring System Case progression tool for monitoring care and supervision applications in family courts
- CaseMan Case management system for county court cases
- Client and cost management system (CCMS) Database holding details of Legal Aid work relating to: Civil Representation Means & Merits, Civil Representation Case Management including The Statutory Charge, Cash receipting, Client & Provider payments, Billing
- Controlled Work & Administration (CWA) Database holding details of Legal Aid work relating to: Contract & Schedule Maintenance, Provider Reference Data, Civil advice (non court) claims, Police Station advice claims, Magistrates Court claims
- Corporate Information Systems (CIS) Database holding details of Legal Aid work relating to: Civil Representation Means & Merits, Civil Representation Case Management including The Statutory Charge, Cash receipting, Client & Provider payments, Billing (Civil Rep, Mediation, Magistrates Court Non Standard Fees, High Cost Cases)
- Court Funds Office records Current and historical details of client funds held in court
- Crown Court Remuneration (CCR) and Crown Court Litigator Fee (CCLF) Legal Aid billing system for Crown Court cases
- Crown Court Sentencing Survey Database Details of the factors affecting judge’s sentencing decisions at the Crown Court
- FamilyMan Case management system for family court cases.
- Forced Marriage Protection Orders Database of all Forced Marriage Protection Order cases in family courts
- Freedom of Information (FoI) requests database Case management system for FoI requests received by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
- Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service language services information system Requests for face-to-face language services completed under the national Language Services Framework Agreement (commencing on 30th January 2012), and complaints made, by Criminal Justice System partner (e.g. criminal courts, tribunals etc)
- Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) Performance Database Database of summary statistical information about all HMCTS cases.
- Independent Monitoring Board Appointments Files HR type information relating to appointment of IMB Members, eg Application forms, interview panel forms, security forms, Ministerial Submissions
- Independent Monitoring Board Conduct & Discipline Cases Complaints about IMB members by IMB Members, Staff, detainees or prisoners
- Independent Monitoring Board Database Database containing HR type information for 2000+ IMB current and former members
- Integrated Accredited Programmes System (IAPS) Operational database for the management of accredited programme requirements in all probation trusts
- JUROR Holds records of all potential jurors for Crown, Civil and Coroners Courts in England and Wales.
- Libra Case management system for magistrates’ court cases, including information on breaches
- Linked Data The linked data is developmental and is produced from linking existing administrative data sources together to create a new valuable information asset which is being used for a variety of purposes.
- Means Assessment & Administration Tool (MAAT) Database holding details of Legal Aid work relating to: Magistrates Means Assessment, Crown Court Means Assessment, Benefit Status Checking
- MoJ extract of Police National Computer Extract of selected fields from the Police National Computer (PNC).
- Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) Database Central system for storing data on MAPPA eligible offenders
- National Offender Management Service (NOMS) Deaths in Custody Database The central system for storing information relating to deaths in prison custody in England and Wales.
- National Offender Management Service incident reporting system The system for recording incidents in prison custody including self-harm and assaults.
- ORACLE HRMS HR Database containing the human resources records for public sector Prison Service and National Offender Management Service (NOMS) HQ staff.
- Offender Assessment System (OASys) Operational database used to assess the risks and needs of eligible offenders in prisons and probation trusts.
- Phoenix Database containing the human resources records for Ministry of Justice staff
- Police force Failure To Appear warrant information systems (various across the 43 police forces in England & Wales) Failure To Appear (FTA) warrants received, executed and outstanding, by category of warrant, in each police force area.
- Police force Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) systems (various across the 43 police forces in England & Wales) Penalty Notices for Disorder (PNDs) issued and paid.
- Possession Claim Online Case management system for claims made through Possession Claim Online website
- Prison National Offender Management Information System (p-NOMIS) and Inmate Information System (IIS) Prison case management systems.
- Probation Trust Case Management Systems Probation supervision and court reports.
- Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) Case management system for those offenders serving life sentences and indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, recalled offenders and offenders who are restricted patients.
- Secure Accommodation Clearing House System (SACHS) Monthly population data for the under-18 custodial population.
- Tribunals Service Case Management systems including: ARIA, ETHOS (and Caseflow), GAPs 2, MARTHA, CICA and a set of SQL and Access based systems, and manual case records. Case management systems holding information on appeals in Tribunals
- YJMIS Youth Offending Team data return
- eAsset Monthly population data for the under-18 custodial population
- i-grasp Database containing details of recruitment exercises
- nDelius Probation supervision and court reports.
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This looks very exciting… but I can’t work out exactly what they’re proposing to do.
I can’t help but feel that this consultation (if that’s what it is) has been cobbled together on a whim – it’s not very clear what they’re planning to do. How am I supposed to respond to whether I think it’s a good thing to make, for example, the Care Monitoring System or Family Man, dataset publicly available if I have no idea a) what fields that dataset contains, b) what level of detail will be made available?
I agree the format of the consultation is a bit frustrating. It seems geared towards open data people / developers so may miss capturing the views of academics, journalists and lawyers etc. even though the NII blog post suggests they’re trying to reach a range of stakeholders.
It seems likely that the data would probably be released in a much narrower format than the overall descriptions suggest and of course, they would have to think carefully about anonymity / security issues.
I was keen to flag it up on the blog, as it is an opportunity to discuss the possibilities for opening up data (eg. could enable the development of case trackers; better statistical analysis) but perhaps (a) more information is needed before precise views can be given and (b) we need a more flexible consultation format.
Agree! Well, look forward to seeing what happens when the datasets are unleashed…
Yes, indeed. It’s worth noting that in soliciting views on the “National Information Infrastructure”, Cabinet Office are not giving any assurances that data identified as priorities will be released for open re-use (even if there are no barriers from data protection, etc.).
All Cabinet Office seem to be planning to do with NII is feed some metrics back to the data-holding departments. They may be able to twist a few arms as well, but I doubt they will have much leverage at MOJ. (MOJ are after all the department with primary responsibility for information rights and public sector information.)
I agree the NII exercise is geared towards “open data people” and developers. This has been an ongoing weakness in Cabinet Office’s user engagement process. There seems to be little recognition that the potential benefits from unlocking public data extend far beyond the relatively small subset of re-users who are tuned in to the policy arguments around open data and transparency.
It will probably do no harm to vote for the datasets you want using the new Data.gov.uk functionality. The NII exercise is useful for purposes of data discovery if nothing else. However I have low expectations for any substantial outcomes, given how few data releases came out of the Coalition’s previous demand-led request process (i.e. the now-defunct Data Strategy Board).
Thanks _very_ much for this Judith as I had not heard about it elsewhere. I can see immediately which datasets are relevant to my research interests but that’s not quite the same as making a case that the wider public would want access to it, is it?
Arguably, “Open Data by Default” (Principle 1 of the G8 Open Data Charter to which the UK recently signed up) means that you shouldn’t have to make that case. The onus is on government departments to demonstrate why their datasets are not open. However it doesn’t hurt to give them supporting examples of how the data could be re-used beneficially, for purposes of prioritisation.
One item I don’t see on that list is the CCJs dataset that Registry Trust maintains on behalf of MOJ. The dataset is available for commercial licensing but not as open data, so it should definitely be inventoried on Data.gov.uk as an “unpublished” MOJ dataset.
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None of the data sets above look frightfully interesting to me and I can’t really see the value of this exercise – but I’m open to any ideas their potential usefulness!
difficult to tell since we know so little about what they actually contain and how much and what type of detail would be released