It is now part of the public sector consensus that high quality data is essential to supporting transformation and the development of better services.
But data is dynamic and needs careful management, human intervention can be time consuming and expensive, and often organisations find that their data is held and managed in a way that makes it a liability rather than an asset for supporting the public.
The issue is climbing even higher up the agenda as more public sector bodies explore the potential AI, which provides immense promise, but comes with the risk of enormous problems if it uses data that is not up to a high specification.
In mitigating the risk, organisations need to focus on designing, collecting and curating high quality data, which is appropriate for the context, before training the algorithms to which it will be supplied. It has to be relevant to the purpose, complete, accurate and unbiased and managed in an ethical manner. The deployment of reusable data platforms and building skills in data literacy throughout the organisation are going to be key to making it work, but these will take time and investment and require a thoughtful approach to getting them right.
This provides the background for our next UKA Live discussion – taking place at 11.00 am on Friday 19 May and staged in partnership with Civica – exploring the key issues ensuring that data is an asset and not a liability.
It will ask core questions on the best approach for master data management, how to obtain data fluidity, and getting the basics right before any application of AI.
Taking part will Robert Musekiwa, digital transformation consultant at Birmingham City Council, John Campbell, digital transformation programme director for the Scottish Government, Bo Ruan, head of data at the Alzheimer’s Society, Chan Phung, ex-Civica and now chief innovation officer at Koi Consulting, and UKAuthority publisher Helen Olsen.
Those who join the live conversation will have the opportunity to feed into the debate with their own questions and comments, and for all it provides a greater opportunity to broaden the understanding what makes for high quality data as the public sector moves into the age of AI.
Register below now to join us LIVE on Friday:
