Open Standards Board

The Open Standards Board works with the Cabinet Office and is accountable for transparent selection and implementation of open standards.

Terms of Reference

The Open Standards Board was set up by the Public Expenditure Committee (Efficiency Reform) (PEX(ER)). The Cabinet Office, advised by an Open Standards Board, will use the open standards process to set open standards for use by all of government.

Transparency and fairness are maintained by making sure that:

anyone can get involved in conversations about open standards
there will be no preference given to any supplier in the outcome
there is regular recruitment for new volunteers for the Open Standards Board

The Open Standards Board’s aims are to:

consider open standards recommendations that relate to software interoperability, data and document formats
consider and come to a consensus on whether a recommended standard should be adopted and/or made compulsory across government
influence the work on standards so that open standards are considered before the creation of unique government or sector-specific standards

It makes decisions on whether standards recommendations:

meet user need and business outcomes
enable a level playing field for open source and proprietary software
are implementable, mature and supported by the market
have been adequately researched and that the impact of adoption is understood
are aligned with the Open Standards Principles and the Government’s IT/digital strategies

Meeting dates

The Board meets twice a year to review and challenge the recommendations made by contributors on GitHub. Other meetings scheduled during the year will be dependent on business needs and will be via correspondence.

Membership

The Open Standards Board consists of a selected group of industry, professional, developer and academic volunteers. The Board is supported by data and technology experts drawn from within and outside of government. Board members agree to the terms and conditions of membership.

Current members are:

Co-Chair - Linda Humphries, Founder, Paper Frogs Ltd
Co-Chair - Dan Bailey, Chief Technology Officer, Cabinet Office
Daniel Appelquist, Open Source and Open Standards Strategy Director, Snyk
Zaheda Bhorat, Head of Open Source and Strategy, Amazon
Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK
Matthew Dovey, Head of e-Infrastructure Strategy, Jisc
Kathy Farndon, Carbonel Consulting Ltd
Dr. Gobe Hobona, Director of Product Management, Standards, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
Lucas Pardue, QUIC Working Group Chair, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Senior Software Engineer, Cloudflare
Peter Parslow, Data Standards Lead and Principal and Geographic Information Architect, Ordnance Survey
Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist, Google
Simon Phipps, Managing Director, Meshed Insights Ltd
Anna Powell-Smith, Founder and Director, Centre for Public Data
John Sheridan, Digital Director, The National Archives
Dr. Jacqui Taylor, CEO and Co-Founder, FlyingBinary Ltd