Improving government data: A guide for senior leaders
Summary
This guide is for senior leaders responsible for delivering government services. The NAO’s aim is to encourage decision‑makers to realise the benefits of better use of data by helping them understand in more detail the core issues to be addressed which have held back progress in the past. The report focuses on data to support the operational delivery of public services, but much of the guide will also be relevant to data for decision-making and to improve performance.
The guide discusses overcoming barriers in data sharing, data quality, data standards, resourcing, access to raw data and APIs (application programming interfaces), creating cross-government data sets for multiple users, data analytics. It also looks at ways forward including: reviewing why initiatives have failed in the past, embedding data standards, improving data quality, addressing legacy issues, enabling data-sharing.