Data — Empowering Local Councils to provide better governance
Data has become a critical asset for both the public and private sectors around the world. Data provides its users with a single source of truth and common ground, from informing decisions to prioritising strategies.
In Australia, the Local Government sector has been on a data journey for around a decade, and while this has already had a transformational impact, there is still some way to go, and challenges remain.
Common ground for Councils
Many councils have embraced the world of Open Data and have used it to drive their decision-making processes, ensuring transparency. As a source of truth, data has played a significant role in de-politicising the decision-making process, ensuring all decisions around project planning or funding are based on a solid foundation of fact, rather than being influenced by the politics of the day.
For these councils, data has helped facilitate community engagement. Using and sharing data has supported community collaboration and allowed third parties to use the data to derive their own insights in developing solutions that can further enrich the communities they cater to.
Data improves governance
This has also led to changes within the internal processes of councils. Data management and integrity have become an important area, and data has contributed to improving the overall governance framework.
Data has also been a key factor in digital transformation programs, often driven through a customer lens as expectations of service levels have risen. Many people want the same level of service and functionality from government agencies as they enjoy from corporates.
A customer focus has also required councils to review their data practices and embed automation in processes to drive more efficiency and better customer experience.
Following the trend
These trends coincide with newer technologies, such as data visualisation tools, app-based mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT) to spread the use of data, out of technology departments and into front offices, on customer-facing websites, and out into the field with council officers.
IoT is having a particularly transformational impact and is of particular relevance to councils on the front line of transport infrastructure as our cities become smarter.
Operational data relating to core functions of roads, rates and rubbish, is critical for council planning and capital works funding and in making sure that services meet agreed standards.
People and movement data and traffic and congestion data are critical intelligence in councils’ core task of improving planning processes and delivering better amenities to residents.
Where councils once relied on pneumatic tube counts and traffic surveys collected manually on clipboards, today there is a new array of data capture tools, from sensors and smart poles to drones, video capture and crowdsourced data.
On top of this, there are intelligent road traffic analysis tools powered by AI and machine learning, are easy to use and help make the data more usable and insights more actionable.
Into the future
Challenges will still exist, and data enablement is a continuous journey of technology adoption and improvement. Councils need to put the fundamental underpinnings of architecture and governance in place in addition to cloud-based platforms for data sharing. Such changes may raise questions around internal capabilities and budgets, which will need to be addressed.
Change is not just about technology. Issues such as governance, culture and business processes are also critical in leveraging data to its potential.
There is much useful data trapped inside of enterprise systems, which is difficult to extract.
There is also an exponential amount of data being produced from new sources, and for this to be used effectively, it requires clarity of purpose and validation. This raises the need for expert extraction and integration tools for aggregating and analysing this data to drive deeper insights.
Data enablement requires customer advocates and council decision-makers to drive the agenda, and in doing so, build trust in the sources and uses of data are critical.
Effective feedback loops need to be developed for the new age of third-party data, and data governance decisions need to be transparent to external stakeholders for this trust to build.
In all this, a fundamental question is the fitness for purpose of the data under council control.
Understanding the purpose and the potential of data from the outset is the bedrock of enabling councils to make informed decisions on a holistic data policy, all the way through from collection to analysis, sharing and using insights to execute policy action.
