Challenges in using data across government

We direct these recommendations at DCMS and the Cabinet Office, who are responsible for drafting the data strategy and for cross-government leadership and coordination. The departments should: a) Use the data strategy to identify and address the barriers to better use of data. It should include a clearly articulated plan of work to overcome these barriers. This should provide an assessment of fundamental data issues, including safeguarding data and public trust, and plans for improving the communication of government’s approach, and potential benefits of using data more effectively.

b) Set up clear cross-government accountability, governance and funding for data to support delivery of the data strategy. Joint working and cross-government groups need to have clearly assigned responsibilities that are aligned with the levers available including funding, controls and operational resources. These arrangements should be clearly communicated across government to alleviate confusion of where responsibilities lie.

c) Develop cross-government rules, standards and common ways to collect, store, record and manage data. Where multiple standards are used, government should develop a consistent approach to balancing competing demands between standardisation and local requirements, including implications for future decision-making and costs. This should include a regular review of departments to ensure that they are applying these standards and principles to their data collection.

d) Identify datasets that are critical to government functions, look at how to share them easily and examine how they can be enhanced by process improvement and automation. This should include an analysis of the processes, systems and data flows so their use is fully understood.

We direct the following recommendations at departments, recognising they are at different levels of maturity. Within this context, departments should: e) Put in place governance for data, including improving executive team understanding of the issues associated with their underlying data and the benefits of improving their data.

f) Set out data requirements in business cases. This should include an assessment of the current state of the data, implications for confidence in spending decisions, and the improvements or new data that are needed to support implementation of the project. These assessments should have an explicit consideration of the ethics and safe use of the data under discussion.

g) Implement guidance for front-line staff for handling data. This needs to recognise the effort and resource required to fully and consistently adopt the policy and principles created by government into the working practices of the department, including standardisation, data ethics and quality.