Big Government Data Strategy - No more Chief Data Ostrich!
Governments around the world are going digital. Considering this, the OECD published a ranking table which rated the UK as 2nd best worldwide (behind South Korea) according to the 6 dimensions used within the OECD Digital Government Policy Framework that characterise a fully digital government. These dimensions are called:
Digital by design
Data-driven public sector
Government as a platform
Open by default
User-driven
Proactiveness
“Many countries are still lacking a strategic approach towards the development of data-driven public sectors. Dedicated public sector data policies, or strategies and leadership (e.g. Chief Data Officers) remain largely absent across countries. The lack of a strategic vision, as well as formal roles and responsibilities for coherent design and implementation of data-driven public sector projects, represents a challenge to moving from policies to concrete, sustainable and impactful actions. “ OECD report
Here at Butterfly data, we are fortunate to do much of our work for a government department that is considered world leading - embracing a ‘cloud first’ approach and appointing experts from outside to lead digital transformation and bring what they know from Vodafone, Microsoft or Centrica, to inspire the civil servants securing our technical future. Resistance to change is always a factor, but the ambition to build a better system and harness the power of technology is driving us forward. The foundational issue to resolve first, however, is always getting the data right.
Other departments are now following suit - I recently wrote about the ‘Data saves lives’ paper published by the Department for Health and Social Care. It takes into account the findings of Professor Ben Goldacre’s review “Better, broader, safer: using health data for research and analysis” which makes clear that we have all the building blocks we need for success, including an unrivaled wealth of experience in using health data. The government will invest £200 million in the development of Trusted Research Environments, as well as putting in places systems and processes covering the following areas:
safeguarding patient confidentiality
reinforcing the importance of building public trust
ensuring that people understand how their data is used
A review was recently conducted of how the many in-flight major government programmes within the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Cabinet office will eventually interoperate to ensure secure data sharing and decrease duplication of effort or inconsistency of data quality across systems. From policing, to prisons and probation systems, there are myriad different databases with no common identifiers to enable end-to-end production of statistics from a ‘single version of the truth’ that reconciles back to each individual database. It is a tough problem to crack, but non-governmental organisations such as the Open Data Institute are helping by publicising the benefits of sharing data, along with guidance about how to do so safely:
“From optimising supply chains and supporting innovation, to addressing sector challenges and delivering public services, we have seen that sharing data can generate benefits for companies, the economy, society and the environment” - ODI
The goal once we have all that data, is to be able to analyse what works and what has not worked in the past. Using this information to make better decisions, based on evidence rather than populist, short term vote-winning policies, should mean our government can optimise its use of resources to achieve its wider goals. Automation may cost jobs but should clear some of the administrative backlogs currently faced by some departments. The algorithms underlying this automation will also now be governed by the algorithmic transparency standard, published last year and updated earlier this month. It has been used by many departments already, including the Food Standards Agency to prioritise which restaurants to send local inspectors out to.
There is also now guidance for the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a national strategy, action plan and rulebook all published recently,, recognising the power of AI to increase resilience, productivity, growth and innovation across the private and public sectors. The UK government has invested more than £2.3 billion in AI since 2014 and aims to encourage innovation and investment.
The six principles outlined in the rulebook are:
Ensure that AI is used safely
Ensure that AI is technically secure and functions as designed
Make sure that AI is appropriately transparent and explainable
Consider fairness
Identify a legal person to be responsible for AI
Clarify routes to redress or contestability
All these strategy documents show the government is serious about data, digital transformation and AI. For departments revolutionising the way they work and the companies helping to build these new systems, the guardrails are in place and the direction of travel is clear. For the CDO of any business or government organisation, there can be no more burying your head in the sand, it is time to sort out all those legacy systems and clean up that dodgy data. It is time for no more data ostriches!
References:
Assessing risk when sharing data: a guide – The ODI
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/algorithmic-transparency-standard