Governments have access to more data than ever before, so why are so many struggling to use it to make policies and services more effective?
Data expert Eddie Copeland says governments need to remove the practical barriers stopping them using their own data, but also recognise better use of data can’t solve problems on its own.
“Government leaders should not keep making the mistake which we have been making for the last 20 years and think technology or data are silver bullets that cure the problem. We’ve got to make some really bold, really radical shifts, and have much more ambitious conversations about how we reimagine public services. Just adding a dashboard on an inefficient system doesn’t make it better,” Mr Copeland said.
Mr Copeland is the founding Director of the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI), the UK capital’s local government innovation team, which helps Greater London’s 33 boroughs to use innovation, data and technology collaboratively to solve problems. Over the past decade, he has worked with or advised hundreds of senior officials in the United Nations, European Commission as well as national and local governments around the world to support their digital, data and innovation strategies.
He will be presenting a two-hour Masterclass, How to use data to make better decisions, as part of ANZSOG’s upcoming Public Leadership Masterclass Series: Leading with a Digital Mindset, a series of two-hour masterclasses which will explore how digital, data and AI are changing public leadership and unlock tools, strategies, and mindsets for navigating the new techscape.
The full list of five masterclasses is as follows:
- 6-November: Reimagining leadership in the digital age with Martin Stewart-Weeks
- 13-November: How to use data to make better decisions with Eddie Copeland
- 21-November: Digital Transformation, lessons for leaders from the private sector with Matt Patten
- 28-November: Systems thinking for complex problems with Dr Kizzy Gandy
- 4-December: Transforming decisions with AI: The RRR Framework, with Anthea Roberts
How systems and culture stop governments using data
Mr Copeland said there were a range of barriers in place that were stopping governments making better use of data – led by cultural inertia, the systems and siloes, and the perceived legal issues.
“Most public sector organisations have been around for a long time and have probably procured their own different technologies and systems. It was very rare that was intentionally done with a view of sharing data beyond a team. So institutionally we’re starting on the back foot because we are not well set up to share data.”
“Governments and public servants all over the world have that caution about data protection law and information governance, particularly if they are not data experts themselves. So that default – ‘it seems complicated, and I’m scared of it’ – puts people off trying to share data between different teams or organisations to build new insights
“Across the public sector in all sorts of countries we have essentially paid dozens of different teams of lawyers to come up with different interpretations of exactly the same data protection legislation. Maybe that’s not the optimum strategy?
“The final big challenge is just a lack of demand from leaders. If public sector leaders are not systematically demanding data to inform their decisions, they will never invest in the institutional capability to provide that data. So, what we end up with is a lot of very frustrated data staff in public sector organisations who are stuck doing KPI reporting but wish they could be data scientists and be set free to tackle the policy problems.”
One of LOTI’s first major initiatives was what Mr Copeland describes as ‘fixing the plumbing’ across Greater London’s 33 boroughs, including the way members share data with each other and creating a common, streamlined approach to information governance.
“What we have learned a lot is the critical bit of fixing the plumbing is to get your information governance right. It doesn’t sound cool, but it is transformational. Engaging your information governance or your data protection lead from the design and conception stages of projects, can turn them from being a perceived blocker to an enabler of the things you want to do.”
Understanding data’s limits to use it more effectively
Public servants need to be much clearer about what data was good at doing, or not doing, rather than assuming that data was the answer to their broader problems, Mr Copeland said.
“This is why we refuse to use the terms data-driven and technology-driven because it makes leaders think the technology and the data should tell them what to do. No, it’s just part of your toolkit. It’s the role of leadership teams to set the destination and find a path there using all the tools available to them,” he said.
“If you take an issue like caring for the elderly and how we support them. Unless you’ve got people out there in your communities with the right relationships, the right service model and staff with the right skills and capabilities, no amount of tech and data can make up for those things being wrong. Bolting on new tech to old processes can only ever deliver superficial change.”
But he said that data was good at spotting patterns that hadn’t been spotted before, and determining where problems might occur, both of which helped governments act pre-emptively rather than after the fact.
“We’ve got a lot of ‘needle in the haystack’ problems in the public sector like: which are the families most at risk of domestic violence? Where are the sites where people are most likely to tip rubbish illegally? Where is homelessness most likely to explode next?
He said that in London data was being used to proactively identify potential ‘unlicensed houses in multiple occupation’ – where unscrupulous landlords exploited people by cramming them into often unsafe properties – by looking at their location, profile and previous convictions of landlords.
It was also being used to help make flood prevention more effective by using sensors to tell governments which drains were at risk of blockage, and to identify council housing at risk of damp and mould, to prevent a repeat of a tragic case where a child had died.
Six steps to focusing your use of data
Mr Copeland said that he wanted the Masterclass session to make the role of data tangible for participants and add some nuance to their understanding.
“I want them to think about what types of things data is good at doing, and what it is not good at doing, so we can have a more nuanced conversation, and not get sucked into thinking data is your cure-all,” he said.
Mr Copeland said he would take participants through the six-step methodology (pictured below) that LOTI used to turn data into action and get organisations thinking more clearly about which of their problems data could help solve.
“Step number one is to think about the outcome you’re trying to get to. Which specific people do you want to be better off in which specific ways because you acted?
“Question two, the litmus test question, who could do something differently to achieve that outcome if they were equipped with more or better information? This is the bit that every government I’ve ever spoken to wants to skip and I almost guarantee they will regret it. Because if you cannot name anyone – whether it is your staff or residents – who can do anything differently no matter how much information we give them, then data is not the enabler of your solution here.”
“As well as the question of what outcomes we want to get to with data, and who could do what differently, if they had better information, we need to look at the legal and ethical issues.
“Just because you can do something with data, should you do it? If we damage trust with our residents by doing something overly ambitious and don’t bring them along with us we risk setting the whole agenda back by another decade.”
“The final step is the critical one because data alone is rarely the whole solution. The data has to be acted upon, and we need a really big conversation around what action needs to come out of it and how you make that possible. Data plus what achieves your outcome? Is it changing your service model, changing your governance mechanism, changing the types of conversations and collaborations that happen between different teams?
Mr Copeland said that he wanted participants to leave the masterclass with a focus on using data more effectively, in making sure that governments were the best customers of their own data.
“In every single future conversation, they have where they’re discussing a decision that needs to be made, I would like them to ask the simple question: have we checked what the data says about this?”
“That means thinking about whether we have the data to be able to make an informed decision, asking what are our riskiest untested assumptions, and what evidence we’ve got that this thing works.
Mr Copeland said that better use of existing data should be the starting point for all public servants wanting to use to technology to improve policy development and services.
“Changing the technologies that public sector organisations use is the work of the decade, potentially a generation. You’ve all got an abundance of data right now so why don’t you start using it?
“You get governments who publish open data, which is one of their most valuable assets, in the vague hope someone else might do something nice with it. We see other governments spending millions on shiny new smart city technology giving them loads of data they have little idea how to use.
“Government should be the primary consumers of their own data. If they use their own data well, they can make much more informed decisions about the technology they need and they can reimagine their public services in the process. So, data is a great entry point for bigger transformation in government organisations.”
Leading with a digital mindset: a Public Leadership Masterclass series consists of five linked two-hour masterclasses that will introduce participants to new ideas and deepen their understanding of how digital, data and AI is changing public leadership and unlock tools, strategies, and mindsets for navigating the new techscape. The series is designed to fit around the busy workday of public sector leaders. Registrations are now open and you can find more information on the Public Leadership Masterclass webpage.