Open data is data that’s accessible, usable and shareable by anyone. It is published under an open licence, such as the UK’s Open Government Licence (OGL) or those from Creative Commons.
Information or data that is freely available but only published in a document, report, or other fixed format without machine-readable access or explicit open licensing is not considered open data. For us, this means publication of data sets online in an accessible format. As such; we are working with other water companies as a key member of Stream, a collaboration between UK water companies, supported by industry and civil society partners with a vision to unlock the potential of water data to benefit customers, society, and the environment.
Open data is useful for sharing aspects of company performance with a wider audience and can create positive results in terms of engagement and trust. Wider open data aims to enhance transparency, foster innovation, and drive economic growth by making more of our data available to the public in a secure and ethically responsible manner.
This approach will benefit customers, industry partners, researchers, policymakers, and communities; encouraging collaboration and the development of new insights and solutions which will be outlined in our Open Data Strategy and the industry-wide strategy.
Our roadmap
In the short-term, we are collaborating with Stream to understand how we, as a collective, measure the value of open data. We expect to be able to align this to key performance indicators (KPIs) in the coming months.
Analysis of a standardised maturity assessment to drive improvements will be lead by Stream, we are working hard to ensure this is fit for purpose and can be utilised by Yorkshire Water.
Team upskilling will target developing open data skills and addressing data literacy gaps. Monitoring and evaluation will start to identify initial capability gaps to inform improvements.
Beyond this, as we look to the medium term (>12 months), actions shift to designing desensitisation tools and agreeing on licenses to support open data integration into daily operations. To support the ongoing release of open data and allow us to go further we are designing our own open data hub.
This will be our own space for publishing and wider collaboration both internally and externally.
We will bring together the data sets from across the website, to one place, along with space to collaborate, request data, and more easily navigate the data available.
In the long-term, embedding open data will become a business-as-usual process with clear responsibilities. Our open data strategy includes ongoing review of datasets and maintaining a roadmap aligned with stakeholder needs. Accessibility efforts will ensure sustainable infrastructure that supports community value. The ongoing work in the collaboration space will define data standards and drive innovation challenges with external stakeholders. Team training will continue to evolve to ensure its effectiveness. Lastly, ongoing monitoring will include strategic reviews, policy updates, and showcasing successes to enhance open data’s impact.
Watsit report
The water situation (or Watsit) report is a weekly report we produce to oversee our water resources. You can read our reports here.