What are these resources?
The resources aim to help you find and access data to better understand and track work on key issues in a local community. They recognise that quantitative data is one important way that place-based initiatives can:
- understand their local area
- track their impact
- make evidence-based decisions.
Who are they for?
These resources are for community-led initiatives who want to access government-held data to drive their decision-making.
Who created them?
These resources were created as part of the Victorian Government’s Place-based Agenda in partnership with data custodians and experts across government. They are based on what we learned from a pilot to improve access to government-held data by community-led initiatives.
Requesting data from government
The following Victorian Government departments and agencies offer the option to request data beyond what is published online:
- The Department of Education: Access to published information and guidance on how to submit a request for customised data is available on the data set requests website.
- The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA): CSA is committed to publishing a broad range of free data on their website. If you have a specific data requirement, the team may be able to manually extract the data and provide customised information as part of the customised data consultancy.
- VicRoads: Requests for vehicle and drive statistics can be made in writing using the VicRoads Data Request Application Form.
- The Victorian Agency for Health Information: Request for Victorian health data can be made using the VAHI Data Request Hub. This operates on a fee-for service basis.
- The Centre for Victorian Data Linkage (CVDL): CVDL is a specialist data linkage unit which can provide trusted population-wide linkable data in a wide variety of areas to researchers and policy makers. Please note that accessing linked data through the Centre for Victorian Data Linkage requires specialist technical skills to operate in their secure, online platform - the Victorian data Access Linkage Trust (VALT). Aggregated or tabulated data is currently not able to be provided by CVDL.
- Open data request: Members of the public are able to request that additional data sets be added to Open data through contacting the team.
- Freedom of Information: Data contained in documents can be requested through the Freedom of Information process. Before making a freedom of information request, visit the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner website.
The appetite for data to enable evidence-informed decision-making is increasing and as a result the services of teams who respond to data requests are often in high demand. Data requests can also be quite technical and there are several things you can do to prepare a data request so that it is easily interpreted and translated.
1. Know what questions you are seeking data to answer
This will help a data custodian or subject matter expert (SME) identify the right data to help you and may also mean they can recommend additional sources or relevant fields.
2. Where possible, know the name of the data set
This can often be found by searching for [subject] data Vic Gov (for example, community health data Vic Gov to find the name of the Community Health Minimum Dataset). This will make it clear to data custodians what data you are seeking.
3. Be specific about what fields you are seeking
In some cases, a data dictionary (a list of all the data contained in the dataset with a plain English definition) will be available. For example, the Crime Statistics Agency Glossary and Dictionary. This should help you identify which parts are relevant to the questions you are seeking data to answer.
4. Include as much specific information as you can with respect to:
- Demographics – are you seeking to understand the data grouped into certain cohorts, for example, age groups? If so what are the age groups?
- Time – if you are seeking annual data, for which years? Would this be for calendar or financial years. If data is recorded over time periods (for example length of employment), how should the date be calculated?
- Location – what area are you seeking data for? Should data be reported for the whole state, for a specific local government area? Are you seeking data at the postcode level for a specific group of postcodes?
5. Format
Specify how you are anticipating receiving the data this can mean what type of file format, how a table is organised or the structure of the data. Would values be totals? Percentages?
6. Be prepared to explain how you will use the data and its relationship to your work
While data custodians cannot restrict data sharing for the reason that it does not align to your work (see the Datavic access policy for restriction reasons), it can be helpful for data custodians and SMEs to understand the fields which may best support your work, and what other potential sources may be of help.
7. Access and security
- Be prepared to document who will have access to the data, how it will be stored and what security and information management practices are in place to protect the data.
- Custodians may also require you to sign data release agreements, conflict of interest declarations or other privacy agreements prior to sharing data.
8. Timeframe
Be specific about an ideal timeframe for you to receive the data, noting that these can take some time due to the volume of requests and the need to discuss the request with you.
9. Follow up
Due to volume, things can be missed, and it is helpful to send reminders every so often and be able to point regular email reminders or escalate where requests have not been responded to.
The Victorian Government has made a commitment to increasing public access to government datasets and ensuring they are easy to find and use through DataVic. Government data will be made available unless access is restricted for reasons of privacy, public safety, security and law enforcement, public health, and compliance with the law.
The full policy and supporting guidance, including identifying data sets to be made available and those which must not can be found at DataVic access policy guidelines.
Proactive and informal release
In the Victorian Government Public Sector employees are encouraged to take a proactive and informal approach to the release of public sector information. This will enable greater access to government information more frequently, and with less formality and expense. Read the full discussion paper.
Challenges with place-based data requests
While the Victorian Government is committed to enabling greater public access to Victorian government generated or owned data, sufficiently detailed data at the community level is often difficult to find and may not be in existence or collected regularly by any organisation.
Additionally, to mitigate the re-identification risk and protect the privacy of community members, data may be suppressed. This means that values less than a certain threshold will not be provided and may be represented as 'less than 5'. Thresholds for suppression vary based on the sensitivity of the data.
Data requests for specific geographies, timeframes and community cohorts may be unable to be provided due to low numbers. More information can be found through the Australian Bureau of Statistics: Understanding re-identification.
What legislation and compliance are data custodians bound by?
It may be helpful for place-based initiatives to understand the legislation which government agencies are bound by, and any compliance and risk management processes they go through prior to data sharing. A more comprehensive list can be found below in the additional resources section. Key points include:
Agencies must ensure that steps are taken to protect the security of the information
The Victorian Protective Data Security Standards (VPDSS) establish 12 high-level mandatory requirements to protect public sector information across all security areas including governance, information, personnel, Information Communications Technology (ICT) and physical security.
Agencies cannot release personal information
The Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 legislates the responsible collection and handling of personal information in the Victorian public sector.
Health information has additional sensitivities
The Health Records Act 2001 protects the privacy of an individual's health information that is held in the public and private sectors.
Please note that this only covers the main pieces of legislation and requirements. There may be specific legislation that apply to certain agencies or in specific settings that restrict the way that the data can be used.
What guidance are data custodians likely to draw on when sharing data?
In addition to data sharing legislation, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) also provides a helpful high-level overview of information sharing including some of the potential risks, as well as why protecting data is so important.
- OVIC Information Sharing and Privacy – Guidance for Sharing Personal Information
- OVIC Information Sharing Flow Chart
- OVIC Partitioner Guide Assessing the Security Value of Public Sector Information
Freedom of Information
Under the Victorian Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act), you have the right to request access to documents held by Victorian public sector agencies (fees may apply). This right of access is subject to limited exceptions and exemptions.
The FOI Act applies to:
- government departments and Ministers
- local councils
- public hospitals
- public schools, universities and TAFEs
- statutory authorities.
More information is available through the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner: Make a freedom of information request.
Additional resources
Victoria-specific
Data sharing policies, papers and guidance
- DataVic Access Policy
- OVIC’s Proactive and informal release of information in the Victorian Public Sector Discussion Paper
- OVIC's Information Sharing and Privacy – Guidance for Sharing Personal Information
- OVIC's Information Sharing Flow Chart
- VPDSS Implementation Guidance (including VPDSS Elements)
Legislation and compliance
- Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014
- Information Privacy Principles
- Health Records Act 2001
- Freedom of Information Act 1982
- Victorian Protective Data Security Standards
Tools
- The Victorian Government API Gateway and Developer.vic portal
- VPS Open Data Portal
- OVIC Partitioner Guide Assessing the Security Value of Public Sector Information
National-level
Data sharing principles, frameworks and guidance
- National Data Sharing Principles
- Five Safes Framework
- Technical White Paper on Data Sharing Frameworks
Legislation and compliance
Finding publicly available data on your local area
A list of publicly available data that you can access and analyse by geographical area.
- Regionally-specific public data sources (accessible version)
Updated