How can the UK public sector maximise the value of data?

Sponsored Post We all generate huge volumes of data through multiple interactions with public services, but there are many unanswered questions about what the public sector should actually be doing with it.

How do organisations maintain the trust of citizens who need to be reassured that their personal information is safely stored and used, for example? And how does the public sector put data at the heart of service design, promote openness and enhance collaboration? And don't we also need to know how our data will be used in the future?

To help provide answers to these questions, and many more, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has created an insightful new documentary series, House of Data. Part One explores the value of data for the public sector and focuses on the vital importance of maintaining citizen trust.

It sees Pauline Yau, public sector director, Hewett Packard Enterprise, explain how the real value of data comes from the insights that it can provide, providing it is effectively processed and utilised. She argues that its worth to the public sector is not financial, but rather derives from the fact it allows government departments and organisations to provide better services - and to more accurately predict what services are going to be needed in the future.

Also speaking in this episode Lisa Allen, director of data and services, Open Data Institute, noted that the public sector organisations leading their peers tend to be those that best understand the value of intangible assets. In the past companies have perhaps focussed more on their physical assets, but government entities are now realising that more significant operational value can be derived from data.

Matt Armstrong-Barnes – HPE chief technology officer for AI, goes one step further. He explores the analogy that data is in some ways like oil. To harness its riches, public sector organisations need planning and exploration before they can extract the raw data, and then utilise efficient systems which are able to refine it into digital information.

All three episodes of this compelling documentary series, which comprehensively investigates the challenges the public sector faces in its complicated relationship with data, can be found here.

Sponsored by HPE.