Government wisdom lies within data

Much like taxes, the collection of information is the most important function to ensure governments can effectively serve the public interest. Unlike taxes, the information is rarely used to enhance government services. It's not for a lack of desire. It is however due to the sheer volume of information that is gathered from a diverse range of sources, within government departments and the lack of consistency and meaning behind it.

Today's governments are inundated with "information overload." Data from countless sources floods into public information management systems and creates volumes of untapped and under used information. At the same time, governments all over the world are under pressure to better manage information and to find ways to be fiscally responsible to their citizens and constituents. This is a unique dilemma. Yes, governments want information and data to increase their knowledge, but they lack the tools - it many instances - to leverage their data into information for making better decisions and achieving their mandates.

The public sector is the biggest collector, analyst, provider and disseminator of information. On a scale beyond even that of the largest multinational corporations, the public sector gathers and generates vast amounts of information. It's the lifeblood of healthy government, helping to ensure prudence in spending and supporting the necessary checks and balances of government departments, agencies and others funded by the public purse.

The challenge for government is to manage and analyse vast amounts of data and information to support better public sector decision-making. In the words of Martin Fischer, an American scientist, "knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification." Given the scale involved, this can be a major undertaking in terms of time and resources.

But what solutions truly support the public good?

Data warehouses allow data from any source or format to be stored in a structured, consistent fashion to support the needs of the public sector. For example, a national data warehouse on health care may consolidate data from dozens of incompatible regional health care systems -- giving administrators a single view of the complete data and a better understanding of the landscape in which decisions be made.

Data mining techniques then enable the exploration of huge volumes of data to uncover new trends and unseen relationships that can be used to improve service delivery, reduce costs and help policy makers make better decisions. Take for example social security. Recently, the provincial government in Ontario has worked under great pressure to reform the Ministry of Community and Social Services infrastructure to better support the needs of Ontario residents. Data mining can help to identify which individual social security claimants are likely to apply for a specific benefit, and enable governments to plan accordingly.

Business intelligence tools such as online analytical processing (OLAP) allow people to look at their information from many different perspectives, reflecting the fact that the real world is not one-dimensional. Government bodies in Western Canada, for example, can analyse agricultural subsidies paid to farmers, by region, province and individual and by the type of agricultural activity involved.

Specific solutions based on these and other technologies can include resource accounting and financial reporting systems to manage public funds with greater accuracy and human resource management systems to deal with a large number of public sector employees at many different levels and often in many different locations.

So is information overload a problem or an opportunity for government? From an IT perspective it can be both. From a responsible and intuitive government it is a tool for longevity and serving the public's interests.

The truly responsible government recognizes that information is the lifeline to success. The real challenge is to organize its information and enterprise in a fashion that unlocks the hidden knowledge trapped within information and data stored within each level of government.

By John Quinn

The author is a marketing strategist for SAS Institute Inc. in Toronto.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Jun 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved