Dun & Bradstreet: The UK Government Digital Transformation mission three is all around data #techUKDigitalPS

In the most recent National Data Strategy blog post, Paul Willmott the Executive Chair for the Central Digital and Data Office, highlighted that ‘Digital and data are the essential building blocks of all successful organisations. It’s only possible to make effective decisions, meet customer needs and respond to new challenges and opportunities when you have modern technology, real-time access to high quality data, a cadre of skilled digital talent and the right conditions for innovation to thrive’. A noble sentiment.  

However, while the public sector has made numerous attempts to leverage data consistently across departments, little traction has been made. The public sector cannot pivot easily. New ways of working and sharing are often more complex due to legacy IT systems, along with a lack of collaboration, paper trails and multiple siloes of data.  

There is also a tendency to over-complicate attempts, which the government itself admits, often because data quality is poor. It currently takes manual effort to make the data usable and to extract the relevant information, as called out in the National Audit Office ‘Challenges in using data across government’ report of 2019.  

But maybe this time will be different with both executive and individual department sponsorship for the NDS and aims within the Digital Transformation Programme Mission Three aligning too – to ensure ‘better data’ is available to power decision making. 

Data as the common denominator 

Data sharing is often called out as a key issue, but through departmental collaboration and support from technology, Dun & Bradstreet has seen a marked improvement where departments are actively working together, sharing both expertise and data, so that there is less duplication and better bang for the tax- payer’s buck. 

It is also refreshing to see that Government departments are making a concerted effort to identify best practice and re-use services rather than continually re-invent. This simplifies cross-department data sharing, reduces costs and leads to faster, more accurate outcomes. Our first-hand experience as a technology and data supplier has allowed us to assist departments and programmes, where it is needed most i.e., in the provision of global business data standards, supporting teams to ensure consistent data usage, and manage business risk. 

These current programmes demonstrate where the public sector is ‘leveraging government’s combined purchasing power and reducing duplicative procurement’, as well as identifying risks across the business landscape. Critical components to an effective digital transformation.  

Find out more about how Dun & Bradstreet supports UK Government Agendas, including the National Data Strategy, here.

This article was written by Dave Mitton, Head of Government UK at Dun & Bradstreet. With over 30 years of experience in a business development role, working with both the Public and Private sector.  David has provided critical infrastructure (Public and Private Cloud) and data services (Reference, business, risk and compliance) where data availability, governance and security are paramount for local, national and global systems. To learn more about this author, please visit their LinkedIn.

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