Dodgy data management must be changed

Inefficient data practices are a root cause of public sector wastage, suggests Peter Walker

Sir Philip Green’s report on government efficiency raised questions about public sector policies on data management that are relevant to resellers – such as poor quality data, duplicate contracts, and procurement problems.

People fail to understand just how vital information is to all organisations. Too often, in my opinion, the benefits of analysing and making critical decisions on information are overlooked. Often, this causes the problems listed above. This has to change if the government is serious about transforming our public services to cut costs and improve efficiencies long term.

Data must be harnessed to ensure institutional efficiency. Doing this across a business or department can take time, but is essential to ensure all employees make decisions based on the whole picture.

Government procurement data is both inconsistent and hard to get at. Why are there so many inconsistencies? Why are separate departments paying different prices for the same services? Why has nobody spotted the anomalies? And what can be done?

I do not believe that civil servants deliberately overlook such discrepancies. But I do believe they rarely have the tools to draw comparisons in the first place.

Savings could be made much more quickly with a central mandate. What’s worse is that I believe that each department relies on a manually produced return to record transactions, in some cases even asking suppliers for information about cross-government contracts.

This kind of information should be stored centrally within the organisation to allow decision-makers to collate and compare information to drive down costs and negotiate better deals. Managers are unable to get a good view of their spending and are thus forced to guess the best prices without any real evidence being available for them to consider.

The statistics in the report, I believe, highlight numerous financial oversights, all of which were completely unnecessary and costly. There are a total 71,000 central government buyers with an approximate monthly spending limit of up to £1,000, which is not monitored. There are no real spending reviews against key performance indicators (KPIs) and departments have no incentive to come in under budget.

But without proper performance management assessments, how can departments even begin to iron out these inefficiencies?

Even the smallest changes to data efficiency can save millions of pounds of public money. If a nurse or ward manager has identified a quicker way of working in a hospital, which reduces administration and speeds up patient care, shouldn’t all managers in the health service be able to see it, review it and, if suitable, roll it out elsewhere?

If a police force has pioneered a more efficient patrol initiative, shouldn’t that be shared with other officers and departments?

I believe that Green’s experience in retail – where stock replenishment and effective data analysis can make or break a business – have given him real insight.

Now it is time for the government to take action to centralise data and ensure managers know all the facts before they make long-term decisions. Responsible data management across all departments would make it much easier to save money.

Peter Walker is country manager at Information Builders