A new tool claimed to offer a foundation for measuring, improving and maintaining the health and strength of a public sector organisation’s data ecosystem has been released by the Central Digital and Data Office.
The new Data Maturity Assessment (DMA) consists of a self-assessment framework which is being provided as both a PDF and in HTML.
This is organised around 10 topics intersected with six themes which are arranged across rows. In turn, each row provides five maturity levels – the idea being that an organisation populates each field as way to understand and identify the strengths and weaknesses in their overall data ecosystem, with results then being measured and evaluated using a separate data maturity assessment framework.
CDDO said the value obtained is dependent on how much work is put in. The document states: "The way an organisation chooses to implement the assessment can provide a deep or shallow, wide or narrow picture of its data maturity."
The maturity assessment does not generate a single score but instead provides a matrix view of digital maturity across the stated topics and themes. That means that after completing an assessment, an organisation may find that it is quite mature in some areas and less mature in others, possibly with patterns related to the topics or themes.
The 10 topics are there to check the perceived level of digital success with:
- engagement with others in the data ecosystem;
- having the right data skills and knowledge needed in an organisation;
- having the right systems for recording, cataloguing and preserving the data;
- making decisions with data;
- managing and using data ethically;
- managing data to ensure its usability;
- protecting data;
- setting your data direction - the policies, strategies and principles within the organisation and the level to which they are embedded;
- understand the value of data;
- and ensuring there are people in the organisation who are responsible for the data.
Each topic has a number of elements. In the last one, for example, framework users are asked to think about data issues and concepts like governance, responsibility and accountability structures, ownership of assets and processes and your oversight of adherence to policy and procedure – as well as several recurring themes, such as ‘data, leadership culture, tools, and skills.’
Themes are there, says the CDDO, to provide a lens for considering an organisation’s current maturity level for a row or topic, and may be useful in understanding the drivers of high or low maturity.
After doing this work, a team can then grade itself on a range of five maturity levels from beginning (‘compliance with minimum legal requirements’ to ‘limitations and restrictions by default rather than by design'), emerging, learning, developing and at the top mastering (‘seen as an exemplar,’ ‘consistently proactive’ and possessed of ‘broad and deep capability’).
It must then map what it has discovered onto a separate objectives and resources indicator to use the DMA to achieve actionable data maturity insights this year.
Rich picture
For chief executive officer for the Central Digital and Data Office, Megan Lee Devlin, the release of the DMA signifies the first step towards delivering a “rich picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our data environments, within our organisations and across government”.
She said she believes the intelligence and insights in the assessments will shape whole-of-government and department-specific interventions now and in the future - and they will ultimately ensure that the UK public sector is able to fully leverage its powerful data assets “safely and securely, to realise better outcomes for the public we serve”.
