Government CIOs use of data analytics: challenges and opportunities

The public sector has many of the same challenges as the private sector but is hampered by a lack of budget and focus

In January, research from Gartner suggested that government CIOs would focus technology investments on data analytics and cyber security in 2019. The same research found that AI was the top game-changing technology for government CIOs for 2019, followed by data analytics.

This focus on data analytics is not a surprise; government departments have held huge amounts of data for years, and have been using it with mixed success.

“Government is a huge creator and consumer of data but historically has not invested the time and resources needed to protect and manage its data well. That has changed slowly over the past decade with the mainstream emergence of so-called big data,” Rick Howard, VP analyst at Gartner tells Information Age.

Howard believes that with the arrival of technologies and disciplines such as self-service analytics tools, data science and machine learning, the need to invest in data analytics has become even more of a priority. But while the private sector has already been making gains in the use of algorithms and advanced analytics to improve the consumer experience, government CIOs have been playing catch-up in an effort to offer similar levels of quality and performance to citizens.

But categorising sectors as a whole is often misleading – not all private sector organisations are using data effectively, and many public sector departments are using data in innovative ways. According to Karl Hoods, chief digital and information officer at the UK government’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department, there are very similar opportunities and challenges across sectors.

“Data is everywhere, we’re constantly reminded of that and the volumes collected by organisations. While it’s easy for CIOs to stand up the infrastructure and systems to collect it, the challenge is partnering with the rest of the organisation to ensurereal business insight and outcomes are delivered,” he says.

This means asking whether the business is making evidence-based decisions or looking for the evidence to support a decision that has already been made, and asking whether data is genuinely being used effectively.

“I find it interesting that in many organisations I’ve worked in you can spend a lot of time embedding approaches to data management and quality, produce some great ways of accessing and using data but when you go to a board meeting, papers are printed or those interactive, drill down reports are screenshots in a PowerPoint presentation,” Hoods states.

According to Howard, this is a result of organisations struggling to create a data-driven culture to support evidence-based decision making.