The UK’s new prime minister has come into office sending clearer signals of ideological intent than any of her predecessors over the past three decades. From her earliest days in Parliament to the policies she has now begun implementing, there is no doubt that Prime Minister Liz Truss is an unapologetically small-state, pro-market libertarian. In practice, this is likely to mean that savings to public spending will be sought to allow for tax cuts. This will also undoubtedly mean that local authorities will soon be forced to deliver services with tighter restrictions on resources while demonstrating maximum impact. One of the answers to this challenge will be to make effective use of data.

Local authorities and the broader public sector are already developing a wide range of data-driven innovations to enhance how they deliver for the public. As the examples presented at the Institute for Government’s monthly Data Bites sessions show, there is no shortage of ideas and expertise across all levels of government. However, for the most part, the focus has been on unlocking privately held data and facilitating more open data-sharing regimes. There is a lot of scope for the public sector to fully draw on the power of the massively rich source of data that the internet provides; originally designed to be public, the internet is, after all, the largest unstructured real-time database ever created.

Lessons from the private sector

Data and data technology are in hyper-advancement mode in the commercial world. Businesses in every industry use big data to guide their strategic decision-making and day-to-day activities. Almost every critical question a business raises that directly impacts its revenue and overall growth can be addressed with data. Such issues can range from optimising a service or developing a new product to measuring customer sentiment around a certain company offering or newly launched service. These questions can also include how to price an offer in a way that is most attractive to us, the general public – all are addressed with data, and more specifically, with public web data.

Opportunities for local government

The huge volume of public data available worldwide will keep growing exponentially; using automated and AI-driven platforms, businesses worldwide are realising powerful new insights about their customers, their needs and the commercial opportunities they present. There is no reason why these same principles could not be applied to design solutions that enhance efficacy and efficiency in how public services are delivered.

For example, ‘scraping’ data from hyperlocal discussion forums and geo-targeted public social media profiles can provide a granular level of insight into public priorities, informing officer proposals at an early stage and saving time and money down the line. Monitoring real-time information from the likes of e-commerce giants such as Amazon about online shopping trends can help guide decisions about how to deploy leisure and recreation resources. And, social media check-in data and online reviews could be used to monitor patterns and shifts in bus travel habits and to inform scheduling, safety and infrastructure decisions. The possibilities are numerous.

Building trust in alternative data resources

Of course, public web data is not a panacea. It should be used in conjunction with traditional sources (including ONS data) to ensure that policymaking is inclusive and informed – almost up to the minute – and is as good as it can be.

There is also a real need to make sure that ethical issues are considered. Research from the Open Data Institute suggests that people may be happy with their data being used to benefit society – but not so happy with it being used to assist the investment decisions of hedge funds, for example. Efforts need to be made to build public reassurance that the data they help to generate is being utilised in supporting better lives and communities.

Skills are also important. Data of any type is only as useful as the ways in which it is collected, processed and analysed. Local authorities seeking to unlock the power of data need access to highly skilled data scientists, visualisers and analysts – possibly working in partnership with higher education or private sector partners. Indeed, there is a strong argument to prioritise data professionals for recruitment, putting them on a similar footing to planners, for example.

Realising the opportunity of the National Data Strategy

The road towards the opportunities that data offers to enhance public services was charted back in September 2020 with the publication of the National Data Strategy (NDS) through its promise to ‘harness the power of data to boost productivity, create new businesses and jobs, improve public services and position the UK as the forerunner of the next wave of innovation.’ The Government and its guiding ideology may have changed since then, but the mission set out in the NDS remains critical.

Keren Pakes is general manager, The Bright Initiative by Bright Data.