On the hunt for a single version of the truth

Data has the pow­er to trans­form the deliv­ery of ser­vices and vast­ly improve out­comes for and the expe­ri­ence of cus­tomers. In the pub­lic sec­tor, it holds the key to bet­ter inno­va­tion, deci­sion-mak­ing and a more con­nect­ed cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, whether that ‘cus­tomer’ is a cit­i­zen, patient or stu­dent. This has caused the gov­ern­ment to pub­lish a Nation­al Data Strat­e­gy, which sets out a vision to accel­er­ate and future­proof the UK’s dig­i­tal econ­o­my by unlock­ing the val­ue of data.

To unlock that val­ue of data in the pub­lic sec­tor, how­ev­er, there are hur­dles to over­come, which were dis­cussed at length in a round­table dis­cus­sion spon­sored by spe­cial­ist STEM recruiter and project ser­vices provider Real Pub­lic Sec­tor on 24 Novem­ber. Suc­cess in the pri­vate sec­tor has long been dri­ven by a relent­less desire to keep up with con­sumer demands; an inten­si­ty that has tra­di­tion­al­ly been felt less in the pub­lic sec­tor. Yet the dig­i­tal expec­ta­tions of younger gen­er­a­tions are chang­ing that, and meet­ing those expec­ta­tions relies on a sin­gle ver­sion of the truth which has yet to be achieved.

“Today’s gen­er­a­tion of stu­dents are dig­i­tal natives and so the expec­ta­tion of how they engage with us is very dif­fer­ent to the past,” Juan Vil­lamil, CIO at Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don, says. “To deliv­er a per­son­alised, tai­lored ser­vice, you need qual­i­ty data, sim­ple ways of under­stand­ing it and robust data plat­forms. We had lots of data, but it was frag­ment­ed and bro­ken, so it was cru­cial to cre­ate a prop­er data strat­e­gy, which we’re now deliv­er­ing against.”

Dis­parate, lega­cy sys­tems are a com­mon­al­i­ty across pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions, which makes achiev­ing a sin­gle ver­sion of the truth much more chal­leng­ing. By ampli­fy­ing the need for faster data, the pan­dem­ic increased the urgency with which organ­i­sa­tions sought to deal with their lega­cy infra­struc­ture; an infra­struc­ture that was nev­er designed to deliv­er the speed of report­ing and flex­i­bil­i­ty required today. It is now wide­ly recog­nised that the pub­lic sec­tor must invest in updat­ed infra­struc­ture to make data more acces­si­ble and usable for the cit­i­zen and the organ­i­sa­tions with­in the sec­tor them­selves.

“In the ear­ly days of dig­i­tal, we man­aged and designed our way through com­plex lega­cy sys­tems and cre­at­ed some­thing that helped the cit­i­zen, but there was a lot of hard work in the back to make that work,” says Brigid McBride, pro­gramme direc­tor, dig­i­tal change at Ofst­ed. “Invest­ing in lega­cy replace­ment is now crit­i­cal in terms of embed­ding flex­i­bil­i­ty and agili­ty into the busi­ness strat­e­gy as well as sup­port­ing dig­i­tal and data strate­gies. You have to tell a sto­ry to deci­sion-mak­ers about how replac­ing lega­cy ben­e­fits the organ­i­sa­tion.”

To realise the oppor­tu­ni­ty of data in the pub­lic sec­tor, how­ev­er, insti­tu­tions must not only over­come chal­lenges to achieve a sin­gle ver­sion of the truth with­in their own envi­ron­ment, but also across third-par­ty rela­tion­ships, espe­cial­ly in gov­ern­ment. Organ­i­sa­tions have learned that data is cru­cial to con­nect­ing their var­i­ous depart­ments and busi­ness units, but real­is­ing a sin­gle, seam­less cit­i­zen life jour­ney will rely on an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of align­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

A citizen’s jour­ney does not start and end with one insti­tu­tion. It tra­vers­es organ­i­sa­tions as diverse as tax, edu­ca­tion, work and pen­sions, wel­fare, health, jus­tice and immi­gra­tion. While these areas are his­tor­i­cal­ly sep­a­rate, with their own oper­a­tional silos, cit­i­zens wish to nav­i­gate all of them in a con­nect­ed man­ner in which hand­offs are, ulti­mate­ly, invis­i­ble to them. The Nation­al Data Strat­e­gy has had a pos­i­tive impact in cre­at­ing a com­mon vision for this ambi­tious end goal, but the hard work is in bring­ing that strat­e­gy to life to improve the cit­i­zen life jour­ney.

“We’re work­ing with col­leagues in oth­er gov­ern­ment depart­ments to con­nect the data strate­gies where the jour­ney tra­vers­es across those organ­i­sa­tions,” says Paul Lodge, chief data offi­cer at the Depart­ment for Work and Pen­sions. “To stream­line the cit­i­zen life jour­ney, we need to under­stand more about their cir­cum­stances when they arrive and make sure their tran­si­tion is straight­for­ward, reflect­ing changes in their cir­cum­stances with­out them hav­ing to pro­vide the same infor­ma­tion mul­ti­ple times, and facil­i­tat­ing an expe­ri­ence that is eas­i­er and less stress­ful.”

Though ini­tia­tives like the Gov­ern­ment Dig­i­tal Ser­vice have set a bench­mark for how pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions should use data and think about cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, some fun­da­men­tal issues remain.

One major bar­ri­er is the con­cept of a data strat­e­gy that is sep­a­rate and dis­crete from a pub­lic sec­tor organisation’s core strat­e­gy is still preva­lent. The gen­er­al direc­tion of trav­el is towards strate­gies in which data goals are embed­ded with­in the core objec­tives – and cross-organ­i­sa­tion­al strate­gies are begin­ning to emerge – but a faster pace would be wel­come.

“You need to be able to think about ser­vices and the data across organ­i­sa­tion­al bound­aries,” says James Freed, CIO at Health Edu­ca­tion Eng­land. “I’m inter­est­ed to see the for­ma­tion of inte­grat­ed care boards and inte­grat­ed care sys­tems in the health and care sys­tem which are delib­er­ate­ly intend­ed to break down some of those organ­i­sa­tion­al bar­ri­ers and recog­nise that peo­ple some­times get ill in more than one place and have care as well as health needs.”

To reach this equi­lib­ri­um, pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions must cre­ate a strong data cul­ture, which is evi­denced by wide­spread recog­ni­tion that data can con­tribute to core out­comes and improve the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Con­tin­ued sep­a­ra­tion between data strat­e­gy and busi­ness strat­e­gy indi­cates an absence of a data cul­ture, though the pan­dem­ic has at least accel­er­at­ed an appre­ci­a­tion of the need for data, dig­i­tal matu­ri­ty and exper­tise at the senior lead­er­ship lev­el.

Appre­ci­a­tion of the need for data and dig­i­tal exper­tise, at all lev­els, may be high­er than ever, but the biggest chal­lenge of all is attract­ing the tal­ent to pro­vide that exper­tise. All sec­tors are suf­fer­ing from a dig­i­tal skills gap, but it can be even more dif­fi­cult for pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions which typ­i­cal­ly can­not com­pete with oth­er sec­tors on salary demands.

That’s not to say, how­ev­er, that they can’t com­pete in the jobs mar­ket. Salary capa­bil­i­ty aside, pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions have what many busi­ness­es lack. Younger gen­er­a­tions increas­ing­ly crave a sense of mis­sion and pur­pose. Much of the best dig­i­tal tal­ent today are attract­ed to the per­son­al ful­fill­ment that can be gained through a direct, mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion to cit­i­zens. Pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions must under­stand how they can
lever­age this oppor­tu­ni­ty.

“Acquir­ing the tal­ent to exe­cute on data strat­e­gy and objec­tives is a chal­lenge when there is a deficit of skills in the UK and organ­i­sa­tions in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors are com­pet­ing for tal­ent,” said David Elliott-Smith, direc­tor of man­aged ser­vices at Real Pub­lic Sec­tor. “How­ev­er, there are ways the pub­lic sec­tor can win. We are a major sup­pli­er of STEM tal­ent and project ser­vices, and we are ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions to ampli­fy the noble mis­sion they are on, help their work­force plan­ning and future­proof demand through set­ting up a peo­ple strat­e­gy.”

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it realstaffing.com