At the Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw on 20 and 21 October a workshop was held on 'making open government data work for local government'.

If open government data is here to stay then only because it has become an instrument to government bodies themselves, and not because government are releasing data only because of compliance with transparency and re-use demands from others (central government or citizens).

This workshop started from the premise that there is opportunity in local governments treating open data as a policy instrument to find new solutions to the issues local communities face, amongst others in coming up with new ways of working in light of budget cuts.

Contributions were made by the local open government data initiatives of the cities of Berlin, Munich (Germany), Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Enschede (Netherlands), Linz and Vienna (Austria), and Manchester (UK), who all shortly presented the current status of their initiatives. The workshop was hosted by Ton Zijlstra (Open Data Enschede, and ePSIplatform.eu). Slides of the introductory presentation are available, and are embedded below.

The workshop participants worked in little groups on identifying local issues where open government data could be used towards new approaches by local government and citizens.

This was done in three steps:

• Identify issues that are currently relevant to your local community.
• Try to define which datasets might be connected to these issues.
• Discuss what new steps are possible, using the datasets mentioned.

The collective output of the workshop has been made available as a document (download PDF), and is embedded below.

Making Local Open Data Work