In today’s world, you can’t underestimate the value of data when it comes to decision-making. Relying solely on intuition is no longer an option. In order to make informed decisions, we need to make sure that data is not only collected but also shared and analysed effectively. So, what does this mean for central government?

During a discussion CGPN 2024, our expert panel explored the value of data in shaping policies and strategies, and how democratising data can lead to smarter and faster decision-making.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation…

The value of data in central government

Kicking off the discussion, our host, Suzannah Brecknell, Co-Editor at Civil Service World, invited the panellists to share their perspectives on the value of data and its importance in central government.

Matthew Lyon, Head of Data and Advanced Analytics CDDO at Cabinet Office, emphasised how data plays a crucial role in shaping strategies, policies, and operational efficiencies, ultimately driving growth and enhancing government functions. He expressed his vision for digitally transforming the government, explaining, ‘In our organisation, what that means to me is that everyone who is delivering something – whether that’s strategy, policy, or operations – have their analytical needs met, they have the data that can inform their decision making and ultimately, it’s augmenting their delivery.’

He also praised data’s ability to drive growth and delivery explaining, ‘There’s obviously lots of benefits to open data, but even sort of civil servant efficiency. So we need to look at how we use data to better drive decision making, whether that’s more effective crime, whether that’s helping the NHS backlog and where we allocate sort of resource and things to this effect. So, whether it’s like a micro scale for our delivery or hold across government. Data is one of the core things that can really drive forward growth and delivery.’

Democratising data: improving efficiency and decision-making

As the conversation moved onto democratising data, Priya Khullar, Director Customer Voice, Experience and Insight at The Home Office, talked about a current project which aims to consolidate customer insights from various channels, including complaints, social media and MP enquiries. She explained, ‘We take data from all of these sources and then map it by customer journey. So, in each stage of the journey through all these channels, you can see what customer insight and feedback is coming through.’ By putting these insights into a dashboard, staff can gain access to real-time, role-specific data, enabling them to respond to citizen needs faster and with greater accuracy.

Building trust through data security

Past scandals like Cambridge Analytica have caused the public to be very cautious when it comes to sharing data. In order to build trust with the public, central government need to:

1. Be transparent and clear about why they’re holding data, and what they’re using it for
2. Protect the data once it’s been gathered, and make sure you have the proper systems in place to keep it secure

This is also a certain amount of fear amongst public sector organisations when it comes to aggregating data. Peter Haigh, Senior Representative at National Cyber Security Centre (part of GSHQ) explained, ‘I’ve talked to companies and organisations, and they will not aggregate their data because of fear. Once you’ve had three breaches, then it’s very hard to sell to your board that you want to aggregate another data set because they think you’ll just lose it. We don’t want to get into a situation where we are too afraid to collect data and to gain all the potential benefit from that data because we keep losing it. That means we need to be really focused on building that security around our data.’

So how do we keep our data safe? Throughout the discussion, Peter identified the necessary steps government organisations can use to secure their data.

1. Step 1: Identify data assets – organisations must first understand what data they have
2. Step 2: Value assessment – data should be valued both in terms of its usefulness and its attractiveness to adversaries
3. Step 3: Minimise data retention – only store essential data to reduce security risks
4. Step 4: Control access and movement – prevent unauthorised data extraction

Ensuring data accuracy for informed decision-making

To make the best use of data, its accuracy, relevance, and structure must be ensured. Matthew Lyon shared an example of a tool developed by the No10 Data Science team called RAPID, which automates data validation processes. ‘It’s relatively simple. You go to a user interface, if you’re another organisation, you upload a CSV and straight away it has some data validation. So, it will be upset if you are not providing the sort of right structure, the right fields, whether there’s missing values and things of that effect. But also, because we’re like then ingesting it in a programmatic way, like we can build out in a very automated way all of the sort of cleaning steps that we might take.’ Lyon explained.

Similarly, Peter Haigh shared insights on data collected through sensors at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), noting that controlled data collection improves the integrity of the data from the start. ‘So, we’ve got an immediate sort of ability to validate that we’ve controlling the data collection in the first case and that in the first place. And that makes it much easier to have confidence in the data that’s coming out. But then you still need to do validation throughout the data flows. It’s coming from the sensor all the way back through that, that everything in that place can maintain the integrity and the validity of that data.’

Join us at CGPN next year

The democratisation of data within central government has the potential to revolutionise decision-making processes. By making data more accessible, secure, and reliable, government organisations can respond to public needs more quickly, improve operational efficiencies, and drive better outcomes.

Thank you to our panellists for their expertise and thought-provoking insights. If you’d like to take part in future discussions register your interest to join us at CGPN on 14-15 October!