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DELIVERING ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS FOR GOVERNMENT
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Government agencies continue their quest to transform services, using new technologies to implement digital initiatives that citizens want and need. Agencies now have a wealth of new data at their fingertips, influenced in many cases by the rapid uptake by citizens of digital services. With such a volume of data comes a growing number of opportunities to discover new insights to deliver impactful and more targeted citizen services. Sources of data can range from internal transactional systems to external sources such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and social media. However, despite such an abundance of data, government agencies need to retain their agility in order to continue to create actionable insights that have a true impact on the citizen. Where the private sector has excelled, the public sector has fallen behind. In industries such as marketing and financial services, every decision made, opportunity realised and product developed has a commercial imperative and a rapid feedback loop. Customer insights derived from multiple channels are capitalised on, improving their organisational ability to deliver quality, targeted services to clients. By comparison, government agencies, who often operate in closed or proprietary systems, can exhibit a reduction in flexibility to iteratively test and trial new tools and methods to discover insights. Agencies that can utilise open platforms and channels can increase their flexibility, enabling them to ‘swap in and swap out’ solutions and applications to find the one that offers the most value. This enables an agency to road-test a new solution in a more timely manner and with ease; without sacrificing the solutions already being used.
There are signals in the data that cut across agencies, there is a social licence to find them and we should use it.
CREATE TRUE IMPACT Government agencies must find a way to make better decisions, faster. While the debate about privacy, compliance and regulation continues to cause tension, it can be hard for agencies to take an emboldened stance to fully exploit data and to discover new and meaningful insights. Taking a fresh look at privacy legislation in the light of new technologies can assist agencies to navigate a path to insights, meeting compliance and regulatory goals and protecting citizen privacy.
Challenge the Status Quo Many agencies can fall into the trap of becoming too inwardly looking when it comes to identifying the data that fulfils their agency mission; proceeding with a preset idea of exactly the data they want and leaving with that data and that data alone. Open platforms can allow government agencies to consider many disparate data sources and gain new insights, as opposed to being constrained within a single silo. Open platforms can provide support for seeing the ‘bigger picture’ and understand data in context. Thinking and acting like an ‘insights first’ agency will allow governments to make data-driven decisions they may never have thought of previously, and ultimately make a better decision with a more positive citizen impact.
Find the Signals in the Data Collaboration is the key to achieving a common goal. To only consider the goals of one’s own agency is to miss the opportunity to contribute to a better overall societal outcome. Inward looking agencies can often underappreciate the benefits of collaboration. There are signals in the data that cut across agencies, there is a social licence to find them and we should use it. Technology is not the barrier here, mindset is. Agencies with an open architecture can more easily collaborate, analyse, merge and unite data to discover and deliver faster, and more accurate insights that can change citizens’ lives. Open up the architecture and embrace the possibilities. In the case of public safety and social services, data is held separately and access to the data is governed by the conditions under which the information was provided or collected. Each agency though could deliver better outcomes if the data could be considered together and analysed for insights to support potentially lifesaving outcomes. For example, an analysis of the timing and frequency of emergency calls in relation to family violence considered with respect to hospital admissions may identify underlaying patterns of times or days that could support more focused and timely welfare checks or police patrols. This can be achieved at a level where suburban patrols are optimised by shift or support services are staffed with specific skillsets on certain nights. Neither outcome impacts on the privacy of the individual but both provide a better community outcome.
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By de-identifying data and using confidential computing, agencies can effectively use data to create more meaningful insights, while minimising privacy and disclosure risks. An open platform can assist government to realise new value from collected data and maintain the integrity of citizen privacy.
Technology is not the barrier here, mindset is. Open up the architecture and embrace the possibilities.
FUTURE OF DATA IN GOVERNMENT Agencies that seek to position themselves for the future must explore the benefits of open architecture. A data strategy needs to deliver new insights to citizens when they need it the most, deliver the greatest benefit to the public and achieve the greatest impact for the agency.
Those exploring the use of open platforms should consider: • Challenge the status quo: Question why have we always done it this way? Have we taken a particular path for historical or vendor driven reasons? Are we actively seeking new insights or is it 'business as usual'. • Understand your obligations: Privacy legislation is there for a very good reason and is inviolable. Ensure security is maintained and respect the levels of anonymity that must be preserved. Understand the boundaries but don’t be afraid to work up to them, that’s where the insights will be found. • Time to decision: Use insights to drive faster decisions and better decisions. Time is a commodity that we never seem to have enough of, every time we reduce the time taken to decision the benefit to the citizen compounds, driving increasingly positive citizen outcomes. For government agencies looking to transform data insights, Unisys can help develop the best approach to suit the organisation and its customers.
CONTRIBUTOR Tim Green Subject Matter Expert - Justice, Law Enforcement and Border Security, Unisys Asia Pacific Contact him
[email protected], view his blog: http://blogs.unisys.com/author/tgreen or connect with him on LinkedIn.
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