The document discusses the importance of data in transforming public sector services and highlights considerations for data collection, including its type, source, granularity, and potential for innovation. It emphasizes that making data publicly available can foster innovation by enabling the public to contribute to improvements. Various examples, such as broadband infrastructure upgrades and local authority footfall data collection, illustrate how data can drive decision-making and enhance service delivery.

1. Data, innovation and
transformation of public sector
services
One Public Sector Scotland
19 June 2014
Atkins Lectures

2. 9
The importance of data
Should it be open?

3. Things to consider when collecting data
10
● What type of data do you need? – numbers? timetables? location based? is it
qualitative or quantitative?
● Source – where can you get this data? is it from an open database? the
public? data that already exists in your organisation?
● Granularity – how specific and to what degree of accuracy do you need the
data to be?
● Use – what will you use the data for? what would members of the public use
it for? how would this benefit the organisation and the public?
● Innovation potential – can the data help us do something new or improve the
way we already do things? how can we make it commercially viable?

4. Should all data be open?
11
The public sector is already
making more data available
to everyone, for example
data.gov.uk:
While it’s scary to give all
that data away, there’s one
big benefit - it makes the
public your innovators:

5. 12
What is innovation?
Should we care?

6. What is innovation?
13
"An innovation is something original, new, and important in whatever
field that breaks in to a market or society".
Based on Frankelius, P. (2009), Questioning two myths in innovation literature, Journal of High Technology Management Research, Vol. 20, No.
1, pp. 40–51.

7. It is not invention!
14

8. It is different from improvement
15

9. It is different from improvement
16

10. Should we care about innovation?
17
Technology Needs
Expectations Environment
Need to
innovate

11. 18
Data innovation in action

12. Broadband infrastructure upgrade
Campbeltown (>3,000 lines)
Capital funding investment to upgrade broadband infrastructure
Quickly extend the availability of superfast broadband services
Need to understand the geography and group settlements into types
Ordnance Survey data, Royal Mail data, background maps
Image courtesy of LLDC

13. Case study: wireless city capabilities
20
Context
Towns/cities procuring WiFi coverage in town/city centres and/or public transport
Need
Local authorities currently collect footfall data but collection may be limited to
key streets or lack granularity
Understanding how citizens and tourists use the town/city (streets visited,
direction of travel dwell time, use of public transport routes, get on/off public
transport)
Solution
Depending on suppliers offerings and procurement routes, Local Authorities
may be able to negotiate access to anonymised footfall data for the area
covered to review:
- City scape investment/regeneration
- Tourism attractions
- Optimise public transport, etc.

14. Marine Scotland
National Marine Plan Interactive
Data visualisation and interrogation
Stakeholder engagement
Communicating decision-making through raw data distribution

15. Scottish Water
Building age assessment for lead pipe replacement
Feature extraction from historic raster mapping using algorithms
Comparison of extracted data with current large-scale features
Linked to customer database
Desktop assessment of relative risk

16. 23
Thank you
colin.henderson@atkinsglobal.com

17. Twitter brainstorming
24
To innovate and transform public sector services what data will be
required?
@RodneyMountain: Big
data offers enormous
opportunities for innovation
@christophmccann: The
people that analyse the data
have to be close to the data
collection
@christophmccann: We
have to make sure we have
a reasonable non-draconian
approach to the security of
data
@CBS_Shaun: Should all
data be open and free
@lwardrop: Good
discussion on balance
between complete v's
incomplete data

18. Twitter brainstorming
25
To innovate and transform public sector services what data will be
required?
@colgis: WW2 aerial photos
used to identify potential
unexploded bombs
@colgis: Poor data in will
lead to poor decision
making
@colgis: Is it right for
commercial organisations to
make money from public
data?
@colgis: Public bodies need
to fund data capture - a
freemium model could be a
good fit
@colgis: Sharing of data
between partner
organisations is often
difficult
@ colgis: Should data
innovators be afraid to fail?
Failure can be good for
future innovation
@colgis: Challenges of data
sharing - licensing,
compatibility, data protection