Rethinking data governance

Are we ready to rip up the rules on data governance?

With Ben Goward, IT director at Harrow Borough Council

“AI will transform local government just like it’s transforming all of society,” Ben begins, though he’s quick to point out that the pace of change is what sets this era apart. Local authorities are used to technology cycles measured in years; AI is evolving in weeks.

As the technology accelerates at breakneck speed, the rules of digital transformation are being rewritten. Is your council prepared to keep pace, or risk being left behind? In this conversation we explore what digital leaders need to know now to turn disruption into opportunity, as well as a challenge to the accepted wisdom around data governance.

Keeping up with the speed of change

Ben Goward is director of IT at Harrow Borough Council. He began his career working in revenues and benefits at Westminster City Council over 30 years ago, later becoming its CIO and managing a shared IT service for Westminster and Kensington. Having worked with IBM System/36 in the early days, and then through the advent of personal computing, ethernet networking, the rise of the internet and mobility, Ben has seen his fair share of major shifts in technology adoption in the public sector. Naturally his attention has now turned to how local government is going to face the latest technology revolution in generative AI and large language models.

The speed of change poses the greatest challenge for a workforce whose average age, at Harrow at least, sits close to 50. Councils benefit deeply from the experience, community understanding and service dedication of their teams, but digital confidence and exposure to cutting-edge tools can vary widely.

Many frontline teams still work with legacy systems that have evolved slowly over decades. These platforms often do the job well enough, but they are not environments where staff naturally gain experience with advanced analytics, automation or AI capabilities.

Building digital confidence must be a priority for all authorities facing similar skills gaps and aging workforces. Providing technology adoption support and encouraging curiosity around AI are simple ways to start, while communicating the digital strategy in terms of how it will benefit staff in delivering their goals of serving citizens is vital for not letting technology advance at a completely unmanageable speed.

The future of data governance

No discussion of AI strays far from data quality. The conventional wisdom states: garbage in, garbage out. But Ben isn’t convinced that this rule will apply as AI continues to evolve.

“Perhaps before too long, with the right prompts, AI will have the power to manage data accuracy standards and retention policies without you having to painstakingly do it yourself on a system-by-system basis. This will completely change our ideas around data governance”, Ben posits.

It raises a provocative question: should councils focus on perfection, or pragmatism?

“While you might want to spend a lot of time creating a clean dataset before jumping into AI applications, another council might decide to just try and derive meaning and structure from what is a fairly tatty old data set,” he says. “I honestly don’t know which approach would deliver the most business value in the long run.”

To get the most out of digital applications sooner rather than later, perfect should not get in the way of good. And we never know how quickly AI might evolve to effectively carry the job of data cleansing, which can currently be seen as a blocker for some digital transformations.

The interoperability puzzle

Still, data standardisation is going to remain a challenge in local government for the time being at least. Ben points to the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) as one of the most successful examples of a unified approach that could provide some inspiration for approaches to local government reorganisation.

By mandating data standards for property information across the country, the NLPG created a shared asset that underpins countless planning, property and regulatory processes. It shows what’s possible when councils align around a single data model, especially when supported by central government.

While NHS or National Insurance numbers are a starting point for joining up customer records across systems, most frontline services still operate in relative isolation. In Harrow, around 300 frontline services are powered by roughly 30 core systems. Like most councils, these systems don’t currently “talk” elegantly to one another, let alone across different councils. “The onus is still on the customer to tell us what their reference numbers are. We’re not joining up and managing those data relationships because currently it’s just not cost-effective for us to do so on an ongoing basis.”

Achieving consistent interoperability has always been difficult for sovereign political organisations that each set their own priorities. But as England explores greater devolution, regional collaboration and local government reorganisation, a renewed national conversation about common standards may be overdue.

Financial resilience in local authorities

As a senior leader, you’re tasked with delivering more for less. But how do you balance innovation with risk?

Most local authorities understand that technology is a driving force for efficiency and productivity and there is an appetite to prioritise very shrinking budgets on technology, says Ben. “The challenge becomes, for us as technologists, how do we move fast enough?”

When it comes to demonstrating the value of digital transformation, however, at Harrow Council they have a much softer relationship between technical initiatives and the realisation of the benefits that will typically arrive a year or two down the line. The technology function works closely with frontline service directors to build a shared understanding of what digital change will achieve – not in pounds and pence, but in citizen outcomes, process efficiency and organisational resilience.

“It’s no good investing millions of pounds in technology and then expecting millions of pounds of savings to come in the next financial year,” he says. It takes a long time to drive the adoption of technology, to change processes, change culture, restructure services etc. So, the real challenge is the organisational one.

Local government may not have the resources of the private sector, but it does have something equally powerful: purpose, local knowledge and a deep commitment to public value. Technology will continue to reshape this landscape – sometimes faster than councils would wish – but by focusing on realistic financial planning and strong cross-service partnerships, digital leaders can ensure that transformation happens with, not to, their organisations.

How will your council seize the AI opportunity before the next wave of change arrives?