Evaluating Government Policies Using Open Source Models

Audrey Lobo-Pulo Bernard: But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know. Sir Humphrey Appleby: No.
They have a right to be ignorant.
Knowledge only means complicity in guilt ignorance has a certain dignity. - From Yes Minister written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn Weve come a long way with engaging citizens on government policy the Australian Governments declaration of open government and the communitys overwhelming interest in open data has paved the way for public debate on a whole new level.
Enter the next phase of open government waiting to be unlocked Open Source Models. Government open source models refer to the idea that government developed models whose purpose is to design and evaluate policy should be freely available to everyone to use and distribute without restrictions.
These models may read in either open or closed data and would often consist of two main components legislation implemented as code and user-defined economic parameters.
The output would provide a quantitative measure of the effects of the policies modelled.
Some interesting examples might be quantifying the changes in the labour force with increasing migration levels or changes in revenue by altering certain social security payments. This presentation will put forward the radical idea that government open source models have the potential to play a pivotal role in informing public debate by opening the doors of policy evaluation to the community.
Many other interesting issues such as whether these models are a public good who has ownership of taxpayer funded models how security issues and privacy concerns may be dealt with and whats the best licensing option for citizen collaboration will also be discussed.
Government open source models promise a future of greater involvement of the open source community in policy development and evaluation.
The open source community would have more opportunities for innovation in designing or improving policy and therefore have a greater influence in public debate.
An increased transparency through the provision of these models would also promote better accountability of our politicians and the media.
Disclaimer: The views presented belong to Audrey Lobo-Pulo and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government.

Источник: rutube.ru