Interview: Malka Townshend, COO Sagacity

The government has announced the creation of a procurement framework for big data and analytics services. What opportunities do you see for the public sector if they can leverage data properly?

The procurement framework for big data and analytics is a great jumping off point. If the public sector can properly harness the power of data, there are so many possible applications that would benefit both themselves and the lives of citizens – from driving efficiencies to free up public cash, through to identifying people in need of help and ensuring they are better supported. Ultimately, data holds the key to ensuring public funds are directed at the issues that will provide the most benefit and support to those that need it.

The key is understanding how data can be used in a specific scenario to improve outcomes, and then finding a way to make it actionable. This involves connecting the dots across systems and datasets to find correlations and insights that can drive real change. It also goes beyond just data stored in structured databases, for instance, there is a huge amount of intelligence and customer insights held within system notes and on tablets and handheld devices. However, this data is often not captured in a way that it can be analysed and linked easily with other data points. If organisations were able to feed this data through machine learning and AI, far richer insights could be obtained to identify actionable ways to improve the services offered, citizen wellbeing and reduce strain on the public purse.

Is the government a bit late to the party here? Isn’t this something that should have happened years ago?

The public sector doesn’t operate in a competitive market, so it has never really been forced to leverage the power of data before to secure an advantage. Organisations also don’t have the experience or understanding of how to harness data to solve the problems they face. Ultimately, you don’t know what you don’t know. Also, due to austerity and further belt tightening since the pandemic, it can be hard for a council to justify the immediate spend to support a data transformation project – even if this will pay for itself multiple times over in the following years.

The operational efficiencies that data transformation projects can achieve are now undeniable. While the government has allocated new money to public services in this year’s budget spending review, data is critical to ensure budget is maximised and that citizens get the help they need. Data can deliver actionable, measurable insights to public sector organisations, establishing the need for change and identifying where resource should be focused.

Why has the public sector traditionally struggled to use data for digital transformation?

The public sector faces the same issues any large organisation does when it comes to using data for digital transformation – skills shortages, data siloes, poor integrations, data quality, legacy technologies and so on. This is further complicated by the public sector being comprised of many connected agencies that all impact one another, but operate very differently – such as the police, social care, education and healthcare. Gaining a single view is extremely challenging and making data operational is even harder. The intricacies of data transformation contribute to a shared mindset in the public sector that the process is simply too costly, complex and time-consuming.

How can public sector organisations go about conquering these challenges?

Firstly, public sector organisations need to identify the key use cases they’d like to address with data – whether it’s to reduce procurement costs, increase support for financially vulnerable citizens or free up social housing, there needs to be a clear goal in mind. Without a plan for how data will be used, it’s simply just ‘information and nice to know’.  

From there, organisations can start looking at what data they have, where it is located, what state it is in and what it will take to make it operational. This will include data cleansing and creating processes to ensure data is collected, processed and stored appropriately on an ongoing basis. This will enable the public sector to maximise its use of data across different organisations. At present, data is used in silos. The police don’t share records with healthcare, who don’t share with housing authorities and so on. It’s hard to get a single view of a customer as well as being costly and time consuming on a case-by-case basis, which limits the value the public sector can get from its data. Once data is cleansed, it is easier to share between organisations to garner useable insights for determining certain patterns of behaviour, identifying extra areas of need and improving service delivery to citizens.

Last year, the government announced a National Data Strategy, including plans to train up 500 data analysts in the public sector. Do you think this goes far enough to solve the issue?

Adding data analysts to the public sector is only effective if they know what they’re looking to achieve and have the right data to use. The public sector first needs to understand the importance of data, ensure its data storage, maintenance and tools work effectively, and consider technologies that can improve data use.

What will be the impact on citizens if the public sector fails to address these issues?

If the public sector fails to harness data, there will continue to be operational inefficiencies that incur further costs to the public purse. Organisations will be unable to pinpoint key targets for their budgets or identify citizens that need extra support. This can result in delays in citizens getting the help they need, reducing individuals’ health and well-being, increased financial hardship and higher taxes as the cost to service continues to rise.