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Data needs to be used effectively to inform and prioritise transformation activity, to track progress and to provide service, customer and organisational insights that drive and enable evidence-based change.
What is data intelligence?
Data refers to facts, figures, statistics, financial, operational, and personal information that is held by councils.
Data intelligence is the process of using, analysing, and applying insights that are achievable from data, to enable decisions to be made that support council outcomes.
Why is it needed?
In the context of transformation, there is a need to use data effectively to inform and prioritise transformation activity, to track progress and to provide service, customer and organisational insights that drive and enable evidence-based change.
What capabilities does it need?
To use data effectively for transformation, councils need to be able to:
- Ensure data governance
- Ensure data security
- Enable data quality management
- Plan data storage
- Define data architecture and models
- Analyse data to deliver business intelligence
- Engineer data
- Present data accessibly
- Promote data transparency and open data sharing.
Each capability is defined in more detail in the sections that follow.
Capabilities have been defined to be read both in isolation (i.e. If you need to know only about a certain aspect of data intelligence), or in combination (to understand data intelligence in the round).
For this reason, there is a necessary overlap between some of the capabilities.
Related roles
There are multiple roles within local government that support effective data intelligence. Some roles are full-time roles and others (e.g. Data Owner and Data Steward) are typically governance responsibilities that form part of other roles.
- Business Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Data Officer (CDO)
- Data Architect
- Data Engineer
- Data Analyst
- Data Scientist
- Database Administrator
- BI Analyst
- Data Quality Analyst
- Data Governance Manager / Officer
- Data Protection Manager / Officer
- Data Operations Manager / Officer
- Data Owner
- Data Steward
Essential enablers
Other than having the right capabilities in place, there are several essential enablers that also need to be in place for councils to make the best use of data.
Local Government Data Maturity Assessment Tool
This tool enables you to build a shared understanding of how well your local authority uses data.
Local Government Data Maturity Assessment Tool
Resources
The following resources have been suggested by councils as references or tools that they have found useful in relation to data intelligence. The LGA is not able to endorse any particular resources or any individual supplier.
- Local Government Data Maturity Model | Local Government Association
- Data Ethics Framework (www.gov.uk)
- DAMA UK - DMBoK (dama-uk.org)
- Data Skills Framework | The ODI
- Data Standards Authority (www.gov.uk)
- The Local Government Digitalisation Almanac | Local Government Association
- ONS data science training now available to local government analysts | Local Government Association
- Performance management for local authorities | Local Government Association
- Home - Advanced and Predictive Analytics Network in Local Government - Knowledge Hub (khub.net)
- Cyber, digital, data, and technology (CDDaT) skills framework consultation | Local Government Association
