Data & Infonomics

This is the third in a series of papers and develops a practical solution providing a framework for privacy preserving data sharing, addressing technical challenges as well as data sharing issues more broadly. It builds on the 2018 ACS Report, Privacy in Data Sharing: A Guide for Business and Government, expanding the concept of a Personal Information Factor and introducing a Utility Factor with worked examples.

Download the report here

 

Infonomics is the discipline of valuing Information Assets and it is based on the idea that information is an enterprise asset that should be counted and managed.  This article explains why Infonomics is becoming increasingly important.

Information Assets (data, information, published content and knowledge) are arguably an organisation’s most vital and strategic resource.  Providing the right data to the right people at the right time is critical to every business activity, every business process and every business decision.  Information Assets are the only ones that cannot be replaced if lost or destroyed.  They are foundational to all high-profile business solutions and technology enablement: to analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; cyber-security; cloud computing; Blockchain and the Internet Of Things; and almost any form of innovation and disruption.

Unlike other physical or even financial assets that can only be used once then are used-up, any Information Assets can be used again and again, and be used a multitude of ways simultaneously.  And wherever information is used, it typically generates more valuable information.  In this way, Information Assets are a non-depleting, non-rivalrous, and regenerative resource.  Organisations that capitalise on these properties are the ones that are winning – and they are winning big today.

In 1975 intangible assets contributed 17% of the value of the S&P 500; today (2015) it is 84%[i].  In the early 1950s the share of corporate market value attributed to book value was well over 80%; today (2013) it is just over 40%.[ii]   Welcome to the Information Age and the Data Economy!  Business leaders who don’t recognise the need to treat their information as an actual strategic business asset are positioning their organisations for failure.  It’s trendy for executives and others to spout on about data being “the new oil”.  But when we hear this, it’s a signal that they just don’t get it.  They don’t get that information has economic properties that make it orders of magnitude more valuable than oil.

Despite the value of Information Assets and the contribution they make, according to executives of a US based law firm and an Australian oil and gas producer that have discussed the problem with us, if their organisations were to manage their money the way they manage their data, they would be ‘broke in a week’. When I asked why, they both replied to the same effect that, anyone in their respective organisations would be able to spend any quantity of money at any time for any purpose without authority and without having to report on it because that is the way they manage their information.  That is, money would walk out of their organisations in wheelbarrow loads.  There is a fundamental disconnect here.

In the words of Julius Sumner Miller, “Why is this so?”  Doug Laney, pioneer of the discipline of Infonomics notes that, ‘information isn’t considered a capital asset by current accounting standards and regulatory bodies (e.g., GAAP, AICPA, and FASB)’ and is not recorded on the balance sheet. [iii]  It naturally follows that, ‘stinking at information management may seem overstated.  But when compared to the rigor and process and discipline with which other ‘balance sheet’ assets are managed, the attention paid to information assets pales.’ [iv]

Experience Matters and the University of South Australia have been addressing this disconnect with their research into the Barriers to and benefits of managing Information Assets effectively.[v]  Findings from the research support Doug Laney’s views; they provide evidence that one of the greatest barriers to managing Information Assets effectively is Justification, in all its manifestations.  Observations include: there are few catalytic events or burning platforms; compliance and risk management are burdensome; other priorities prevail; the cost of managing Information Assets well and the benefit of doing so are unknown and are not recorded on the Income Statement; the value of information is contextual and is not recorded on the Balance Sheet; benefits are intangible, intertwined and difficult to crystallise; inefficiency is often rewarded; and the management of Information Assets is boring.

But if Information Assets had a value that was recorded on the balance sheet, the disconnect, and our associated problems, would vaporise in an instant.  Infonomics analyses the production and consumption of information and the transfer of money to produce, sell or obtain it.[vi]  Doug Laney explains: [vii]

Infonomics is the concept and practice of treating information as an actual corporate asset.  Everyone talks about information as one of their organization’s most critical corporate assets but scant few actually behave as if it is.  That is, they don’t monetize, manage or measure it with nearly the same discipline as their physical or financial assets – or even their human capital.  In fact, most companies treat their office furniture with greater asset discipline than their information…perhaps because even in the midst of the Information Age the accounting profession refuses to recognize information as a balance sheet asset.

Laney says, ‘for most practical purposes it makes perfect sense (and dollars) to monetize your information in a variety of ways.’ [viii]  Infonomics posits that information should be considered a new asset class in that it has measurable economic value and other properties that qualify it to be accounted for and administered as any other recognised type of assets – and that there are significant strategic, operational and financial reasons for doing so.  Infonomics provides the framework businesses and governments need to value information, manage it and wield it as a real asset.[ix]  It allows organisations to transform from just using information to optimising it.  It also allows organisations to better understand, gauge and financially leverage the benefits from managing Information Assets well.

Laney discovered Infonomics when he was at Gartner.  After the 9/11 terror attacks on the twin towers, clients lamented to Doug not only the tragic loss of life but the loss of their data.  They told him that their businesses had submitted claims for their data to insurance companies which refused to honour those claims by arguing that electronic data wasn’t a type of property covered by their policies.

So he researched the definition of an asset in an old accounting text and he researched balance sheets in the online financial database EDGAR.  He found that although information meets all the criteria of an asset, because it is not included in the balance sheets, it is not recognised as such.  And so the penny dropped.  Information doesn’t have a value.  Therefore, it can’t be measured.  You can’t manage what you can’t measure.  And you can’t monetise what you can’t manage.

Over time Laney and his colleagues developed and adapted models for measuring information’s value – in a variety of ways and for different purposes.  They have explored how to manage information as an actual asset by applying asset management approaches from other fields.  They have designed approaches to monetising any Information Asset that takes advantage of its unique economic properties.  And they have begun exploring how traditional economic concepts like supply and demand, marginal utility and price elasticity must be tweaked to apply to Information Assets.

The value of Information Assets is contextual.  In an oil and gas producer, seismic data is extremely important to a Reservoir Engineer because they use that information to do their job.  But it is also useful to the Director of Investor Relations because they have to sell the company to the investor community.  And it is of value to the Chief Financial Officer who has to determine how much (s)he can spend to develop the resource and still make a profit.  And after 10 years and the well has been capped, that seismic data may no longer be of use to the Reservoir Engineer.  So Information Assets will have a different value according to different professions, different levels of seniority and different time frames

Because the value of Information Assets is contextual, and because different organisations have different corporate objectives and measurement approaches, one size does not fit all.  To address that issue Laney has developed six models for valuing information that fall into two categories, namely Foundational Measures and Financial Measures.  The models are:

1.     Foundational Measures

a.     Intrinsic Value of Information – how correct, complete and exclusive are the data

b.     Business Value of Information – how good or relevant are the data for specific purposes

c.      Performance Value of Information – how do the data affect key business drivers

2.     Financial Measures

a.     Cost value of Information – what would it cost if the data were lost

b.     Market value of Information – what could the data be sold or traded for

c.      Economic value of Information – how the data contribute to the bottom line

Each of the models has its own formula, an equation for determining the value of the organisation’s Information Assets.

Applying a value to Information Assets allows executive management to see them for what they really are – a vital and strategic resource to be managed, deployed and exploited.  It allows them to be managed the way other assets are – with effective governance, leadership, management and business behaviours.  It allows the fundamentals of good asset management to be applied – a framework, measurement, reporting and management tools, clear responsibility for the management of those assets and unavoidable accountability.

And from our research, the potential business benefit of good Information Asset management is in the order of 20% business improvement per year.[x]

Infonomics is a discipline that is well worth investigating.

James Price,  Founder and Managing Director, Experience Matters

 

[i]            Ocean Tomo, Valuing Intangible Assets,September 2017.

[ii]           Baruch Lev and Feng Gu, The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers, 2016

[iii]          Doug Laney, Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage, 2017, 20.

[iv]          Ibid.

[v]           Nina Evans, and James Price, Barriers to the Effective Deployment of Information Assets: An Executive Management Perspective,  Interdisciplinary Journal of Information and Knowledge Management (IJIKM), 7:177-199.

[vi]          https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/infonomics.

[vii]         Note iii.

[viii]         Ibid.

[ix]          Information Governance World Issue 1 Volume 1, 50.

[x]           https://www.experiencematters.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Benefits-of-managing-Information-Assets-well-190412.pdf.

 

He taonga te tuakiri: āianei, haere ake nei

New Zealand’s Identity Conference 2019 was the fourth in a series of conferences that began in 2008.  The conference was held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, on 26 and 27 August 2019.  The conference purpose or ‘big idea is to look at the identity-related problems of today and the solutions of tomorrow’.  Carol Feurriegel recounts some of the highlights from the conference.

 “Identity is a complex and sensitive area. It reflects our sense of self and it is also at the heart of relationships between people and organisations. Our Identity is our taonga” to quote Professor Steve Warburton, in his keynote address as Chair of the Identity Conference 2019 on Monday 26thAugust. It is fitting that the premier event that takes a multi-disciplinary perspective on Identity is held at Te Papa Tongawera, Museum of New Zealand in Wellington.

“Taonga” means ‘treasure’ in Te Reo Maori. It can be applied to anything that is prized, anything that is of value including socially and culturally valuable objects, resources, phenomena, ideas and concepts.

Identity is a concept that is honoured in Maori culture. It is customary when people meet to share your ‘pepeha’ or your introductory speech, based on your ‘whakapapa’ your genealogy. To the Maori and to many other indigenous peoples, your identity is intrinsically linked to your relationships with both the land (whenua) and with people (tangata).

We are now living in an age where technology is often the substrate on which our identity is established, validated, used legitimately and sometimes manipulated, misrepresented and stolen outright. Huge amounts of data and information are generated and flow throughout the digital economy and we need our identity in order to benefit from the many services and products that are available online, to earn a living and even to have a social life.

Identity has become what we say, what other people say about us and now in the age of the Internet of Things, our identity also includes whatever interactions we have in the cyber-physical world with technology.

These were the challenges and issues that were addressed by the expert speakers at the Identity Conference who ranged from Digital Services Minister, Kris Faafoi who deftly dealt with a tricky and anonymous sli.do question by peering into the auditorium and asking the enquirer to stand up and elaborate – which he promptly did! Proving to everyone that communication and clarity is sometimes better face-to-face.

To the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards who spoke eloquently about the emergence of ‘Identity politics’ and its links to the fear that drives groups to try and control the identity of others. He urged us to remember “Who I am does not take away from who you are or could be”.The Commissioner also had a shopping list of things for preserving dignity and autonomy in the face of digital encroachment including more regulation, ‘spanning, for example: antitrust consumer rights anti-competitive practices privacy, electoral integrity.’

 

A response on a global scale is required.  Looking at the Christchurch Call for Action, the Commissioner said, ‘one need that became evidence was an industry clearinghouse of some kind for identifying content that we can all agree ought not to be available.  You can find the transcript of the Privacy Commissioner’s address here.

 

To academics like Professor Tahu Kukatai, an expert on indigenous data sovereignty who spoke about the Maori concept of ‘tikanga’, an ethical governance approach. Noting that governance regimes like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is individualized and doesn’t speak to the group rights and interests (whakapapa) identified by indigenous peoples. Nor does western governance embrace other indigenous concepts such as non-human identity, the identity of place which has a spiritual dimension for indigenous people recognising the interconnected relationships between people and places.

 

Other speakers included Kashmir Hill, a technology journalistworking for services like the New York Times and Gizmodo. Kashmir described two of her recent research articles. The first on the Internet of Things was called “The House that Spied on me”.

 

To prepare for this article Kashmir spoke about filling her house with every internet-enabled device she could obtain, from the commonplace Smart TVs and digital assistants, to the less common internet-enabled bed, toaster, fridge and dishwasher. She also found (but didn’t purchase!) more unusual gadgets like internet-enabled sex toys which being blue-tooth controlled, are apparently designed for ‘remote’ relationships. Kashmir collaborated with a technologist who created a special router for her home to harvest all the data traffic plus identify what data could be sold to data brokers. Her analysis of the data traffic was very revealing and also very disturbing for her and her young family.

Kashmir found that every single internet-enabled device in her home was sending data to its manufacturers even when they were not in use.

The Smart TV sends data to data brokers on viewing preferences, the fridge and other kitchen devices captured and sent data on temperature, usage and performance and the digital assistants sent a constant stream of ambient information to their networks.

None of the data traffic was visible to the users in the household and it reinforced the message that with the Internet of Things – even if you pay for the device you are still the product.

 

Kashmir’s second article she talked about was her experience of ‘Blocking the Big 5’. This was her attempt to divorce herself from the Big 5 technology giants – Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Google. To do this she collaborated with another technologist to build the equivalent of an internet ‘Faraday cage’ – a special router to block the published IP address ranges of the Big 5. Her results were fascinating.

She found Amazon the hardest to get away from – 30% of websites no longer worked as many other applications and services use AWS (Amazon Web Services) as part of their service architecture including Netflix, EBay and CNN. Kashmir’s experience was, ‘Amazon is so dominant that it quickly became clearly that it was impossible to avoid, in both the real and digital worlds’.

Facebook wasn’t as bad as Amazon, but it meant that Facebook-owned applications like What’sApp and Instagram ceased to work. She found that many conversations had moved into the digital world almost exclusively. During the research she missed important events in her social circle including the death of friend’s spouse which caused great embarrassment.

Facebook owns your social network data and social isolation is the result of severing the connection – without friends you don’t have a social network.

With Apple, contacts became the biggest issue. Apple is like a gated community and your AppleID is the key – when you were inside you became part of the conversation but once you were outside it became very difficult to participate or to get you data out – exporting your list of contacts to a non-Apple device was particularly difficult.

Kashmir found Microsoft can’t actually be blocked in the real world and that it wasn’t just the affiliated apps like Linkedin and Skype that stopped working. It was also car navigation systems and many point of sale (POS) applications which are powered by Microsoft products.

With Google, identity became flashpoint. It was easy to replace Google for things like search and calendars, but it became much harder when it came to mapsbecause many other services like Yelp, Uber and Lyft use Google in the background. However, many other services also use Google for identity verification and validation including Dropbox who wouldn’t believe she was a human being – because she couldn’t be verified as legitimate traffic (not a bot) via Google. The implication being that you aren’t a person unless Google says so.

The internet also became slower when she cut the Big 5 out of her life. Not only because other sites load assets like fonts, trackers, analytics etc. from Google but in general the internet is a much less pleasant experience without the benefit of the wealth of behavioral data the Big 5 have on you.

There were also a number of excellent panel discussions over the two days of the conference which covered topics including DNA and profiling, Self-sovereign Identity, Artificial Intelligence and Biometrics and more which were all valuable, informative and challenged the audiences thinking and perceptions around the changing role of identity and the value of truth, privacy, fairness and inclusiveness in our connected digital future.

The ever-entertaining NZ Chief Archivist, Richard Foy provided the closing key-note address on Public Records, Private Lives on the last day of the conference. Richard is a Te Reo-fluent kiwi of Asian descent and a huge Star Trek fan. Richard discussed the interesting questions of – Who am I? Who are we as a nation?   He entertained the audience with his recounting of the interesting, funny and sometimes unexpected facts he unearthed about his own identity when he tried to trace his family tree through the archival records in his care, including life under the Aliens Act 1948.

 

Richard closed with a thought-provoking comment, he said,

“Our national identity is captured in our memory and the stories we tell that define us. Identity is about making decisions about our future. It is our human right to define who we are and it’s about much more than just its expression in a set of credentials”. 

 

Carol Feuerriegel

IGANZ Advisory Board Member

 

 

As we rapidly move toward a technology-driven, globally interconnected world, the exponential growth in data collected by business and government enables significant value to be derived from this resource. In December 2015, the Australian Government released its Australian Government Public Data Policy Statementas part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, recognising data as ‘a strategic national resource that holds considerable value for growing the economy, improving service delivery and transforming policy outcomes’.

While there is the potential to derive enormous value from data, there is a fundamental requirement that data be secured, meaning both government and business must protect citizens’ and consumers’ personal information. Key to achieving the benefits of data optimisation and mitigating the inherent risks is governance. Good governance enables organisations to control data by securing, protecting, managing and optimising the value of data.

Digital Continuity 2020 Policy

Supporting the Australian Government’s digital transformation is the Digital Continuity Policy 2020, which applies to all Australian government agencies. The keystone of the policy is Principle 1, which states that information is valued. It requires by 2020 that ‘agencies will manage their information as an asset, ensuring that it is created, stored and managed for as long as it is required, taking into account business requirements and other needs and risks.’ This principle recognises that:

‘Information is a key strategic asset and economic resource of the Commonwealth and is as important as budget, property and equipment. Digital information management enables efficiencies in service delivery, increases opportunities for information sharing and can improve business decisions and accountability.’

Data Delivering Value

The following illustration shows that data or data sets from which accurate information and insights can be drawn is of high value because it supports and results in decisions that deliver on strategic goals.

 

Data Governance

To achieve the potential gains from the exponential volumes of data being created, collected and stored, it is essential to collect and manage data in accordance with appropriate policies and procedures. Doing so ensures the data is properly controlled, as well as accurate and reliable so that insights and information obtained are also accurate and reliable. Therefore, data governance is the way in which data is controlled, managed and optimised. It comprises policies, procedures, and the mechanisms by which these are coordinated within organisations to control and manage data. Importantly, the policies and procedures need to include accountability mechanisms.

Data governance requires clear policies and procedures, including:

• Data policies;

• Data standards;

• Data roles and responsibilities; and

• Accountability

Data that is no longer required to be retained for record-keeping obligations or business purposes – referred to as redundant, outdated or trivial (ROT) data – should be disposed of in accordance with accountable archiving and retention policies and disposal schedules.

Cybersecurity and Protecting Personal Information

Data needs to be secured and personal information protected. As David Fricker, Director-General of the National Archives of Australia, stated earlier this year in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report, Identity of a Nation:

And more often than not, the intent that motivates a cyberattack is access to data. It’s the data that needs to be protected from exfiltration, manipulation, or destruction because it’s the data that holds information critical to Australia’s agency and success as a sovereign nation.

Therefore, cybersecurity and information technology policies and processes, together with privacy policies and processes, need to align and coordinate with the overall management of data. This includes privacy impact assessments (see Australian Government Agencies Privacy Code) and embedding privacy by design and ethics by design in governance policies and data initiatives.

Australian government agencies are required to comply with the Australian Government Agencies Privacy Code, which began on 1 July 2018. As the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner states, the Code ‘symbolises thecommitment of Australian government agencies to the protection of privacy, and helps build public trust and confidence in personal information handling practices and new uses of data proposed by agencies.’

AI Data Ethics and Governance

The UK Information Commissioner’s Officer report, Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data protection, describes the connection between big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as follows: ‘AI can be seen as a key to unlocking the value of big data; and machine learning is one of the technical mechanisms that underpins and facilitates AI. The combination of all three concepts can be called ‘big data analytics.’In the context of the significant value from AI and its potential for good (e.g., delivering improved services to citizens and consumers) and the risks (e.g., privacy breaches through reidentification of personal information, lack of algorithmic transparency or algorithmic bias and/or discrimination, increased cyber risks arising from the size and value of the data), there have been a number of papers and guidelines issued for ethics in AI. This includes, The Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI), published in April 2019 and prepared by the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which is an independent expert group set up by the European Commission; and Artificial Intelligence: Australia’s Ethics Framework, a discussion paper developed by Australia’s leading data innovation group, CSIRO’s Data 61, and released in April 2019 to publicize the government’s approach to AI ethics in Australia.In May 2019, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) adopted its Principles on Artificial Intelligence, the first international standards agreed by governments for the responsible stewardship of trustworthy AI. The standards include recommendations for public policy and principles to be applied to AI developments around the world. The principles ‘promote AI that is innovative and trustworthy and that respects human rights and democratic values’.

A key issue in considering the role of ethics in AI is the development and application of an ethics assessment as part of or in addition to the aforementioned privacy impact assessment requirement. The challenge for organisations across government and business is grappling with the myriad of data opportunities, new and rapidly changing technologies, and data risks. This can be addressed by implementing a unified strategic governance framework that is cohesive and features strong accountability mechanisms. Top-down leadership and collaboration across organisational silos and professional disciplines responsible for the different facts of information are key to successful implementation. This includes: information technology and cybersecurity, data/digital strategy, legal, privacy, records and information, innovation and other stakeholder areas within an organisation.

Information Governance

As part of the Digital Continuity 2020 Policy, Australian Government agencies are required to implement an information governance framework to manage information assets across the entire organisation to support its business outcomes. It sets out the steps involved in building a robust framework to ensure that the overall legal, regulatory and business contexts, within which information assets are created, are used and managed. This enables coordination, planning and leadership throughout the whole agency. The importance of governance and a whole-of-government approach is highlighted in the ASPI’s Identity of a Nation report as being necessary for ensuring robust and reliable management of national identify data.

Benefits of Good Governance

The benefits of good data governance include improved accuracy, reliability and integrity of data, and accountability.

The benefits of good information governance include a holistic approach for data and information throughout the organisation to improve accountability and reduce risk.

Good governance means a unified strategic approach that meets the organisation’s strategic objectives and, in the case of a government agency, the whole-of-government objectives. It includes cohesive policies, procedures and frameworks with top-down leadership, and well-implemented accountability mechanisms.

Good data and information governance requires effective implementation of policies and processes and robust frameworks, together with fit for purpose technologies and people equipped with the necessary data and information capabilities for the work they perform. All in all, good data and information governance enables whole-of-government innovation and provides value for growing the economy, improving service delivery and transforming policy outcomes for all Australians.

Susan Bennett LLM (Hons), MBA, FGIA, CIPP/E

Principal, Sibenco Legal & Advisory

Co-founder & Director, Information Governance ANZ

 

Jacinda Ardern’s announcement of her intention to deliver New Zealand’s first ‘Wellbeing Budget’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January caused headlines as the world’s youngest female head of state outlined an approach to economic measurement that put people’s needs at the centre of the government investment agenda. Ardern said “politics needed to be more altruistic and more long term” to address the deep-rooted inequalities in New Zealand’s current economic outlook and to address the challenges emerging from issues such as climate change and automation.

World leaders and economic institutions have been watching the ‘little country at the bottom of the world’ with great interest, as they embark on this experiment that could change the way governments develop social strategy and assess the effectiveness of their social policies. For many years institutions like the OECD have been encouraging economies to look beyond just economic measures of success and to look at the overall wellbeing of their populations as an indicator of whether their policy decisions are moving the dial on improving the standards of living in their countries.

In 2008 Professors Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi were asked by the President of France to identify the limits of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator of economic performance and social progress; and to assess the feasibility of alternative measurement tools. They found that there was a gap between standard economic measures like economic growth, inflation, unemployment; and public perceptions about progress. They suggested those measures only matter based on what they mean for people’s lives either directly or indirectly; and they were also concerned about the sustainability of progress given environmental and other concerns.

They proposed that governments “shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being”. They recommended governments collect additional data about people’s quality of life that measures both objective and subjective wellbeing and how it changes over time and reflects the diversity of peoples’ experiences and linkages amongst the dimensions of people’s lives (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi, 2009).

In New Zealand, ‘Wellbeing’ refers to people’s welfare, quality of life, or what an economist might refer to as utility. It encapsulates the degree to which people are able to live the kind of life they have reason to value. Wellbeing is a concept that crosses cultures, for example hauora – a Māori concept of health and wellbeing. The Māori greeting ‘kia ora’ literally translates to “be well”. Traditional Māori models of wellbeing place family and whānau at the centre of society.

This approach has set New Zealand apart from other nation’s by making it the first country in the world to change its perspective on ‘what economic success looks like’.

In May after the release of the budget (which was marred by a reported data hack), Jacinda Ardern discussed New Zealand’s “solid rates of GDP growth” but questioned the “quality of that economic activity and how it has been shared”. Ardern said that’s why Budget 2019, now known as the Wellbeing Budget, will focus on “areas where the evidence shows we have the greatest opportunities to make a difference to New Zealanders’ wellbeing”.

“Nobody wants to live in a country where, despite a strong economy, families are homeless, where our environment is being rapidly degraded and people with mental health issues do not receive the support they need.” She also condemned the country’s “shocking levels of family violence and child poverty” and said Budget processes need to change because the traditional cost benefit analysis of them” is often short term”. 

The New Zealand Productivity Commission supports Ardern’s view. Its 2015 report concluded that the New Zealand social system was under performing and creating ‘cycles of disadvantage’ for the people who needed it most. Some segments of the community were experiencing consistent and often multi-generational disadvantage – across health, education, welfare dependency and crime.

The focus on wellbeing isn’t new in New Zealand, work started in the 1980’s with Statistics New Zealand’s (Stats NZ) ‘Social Indicators’ wellbeing survey (Department of Statistics, 1984). More recently reports such as the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit’s ‘Family Wellbeing’ and ‘Whanau Rangatiratanga’ Frameworks, the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) Social Report (2001-2016) and Treasury’s 2002 working paper which includes an analytical framework for investing in wellbeing and ‘Living Standards Dashboard’ currently under development, have been influential in creating awareness of the inequalities and failures of the New Zealand social sector.

There has been a growing realisation that there is a paucity of data and evidence-based insights for decisions about where to invest to create the changes that are needed. New Zealand’s Social Investment Agency (SIA) created by the previous National-led Government, exists to determine what works for better lives and to ensure the right data is available to base decisions about where to invest funds for the long-term changes required to fulfil Ardern’s wellbeing agenda. Social sector agencies are refactoring their investment plans around the wellbeing agenda and aligning with Treasury’s Living Standards Framework.

SIA’s recent report ‘Are we making a difference in the lives of New Zealanders – how will we know’ states “Investing for social wellbeing means ensuring people get the support they need to live the lives to which they aspire. It is about understanding people’s needs and matching the appropriate support and services to meet their needs. It is about removing barriers and actively trying to maximise wellbeing. It is about supporting and resourcing people to improve theirs and others’ wellbeing”

What does this mean for data governance and trust in Aotearoa?

It is implicit that investing for social wellbeing will require more systematic use of data – lots and lots of data. It will also mean the development of an innovative approach to how to measure wellbeing and to leverage advanced analytics and evidence to identify who in the New Zealand population would benefit from what type of social policy interventions. Large amounts of often quite sensitive data, will need to be used in careful, considered, consistent, transparent and ethical ways that are accountable to New Zealanders and builds, rather than erodes trust in government.

To this end SIA conducted a public consultation in 2018, meeting with over 1,000 service users, Māori, Pacific people, service providers, and service contracting agencies to discuss the Ardern Government’s wellbeing approach, the role data will play, and to hear how people feel about both topics.  A product of this engagement is the Data Protection and Use Policy, a governance tool, to guide social sector parties in the ethical use of data and information about people.

Doug Lambert (formerly SIA’s Director of Measurement and Insights and currently Data Governance and Strategy Lead at Inland Revenue NZ) states that the wellbeing agenda presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realise foundational changes in the data infrastructure across the New Zealand social sector data and measurement systems to support broader measurement of social need, service uptake, service effectiveness, and future spend on social services.

Lambert believes the opportunities exist right now to:

1. Determine what to measure and the acquisition strategy for the required data sets. Measuring what matters will provide decision makers information they can use to allocate funding and to where it will make the most difference to people’s lives. Knowing what to measure will identify new data required. The opportunity is to conduct measurement with confidence when the required data is known and available and to invest in sourcing required data when it is known to be currently unavailable.

2. Create comprehensive data documentation and developing new data standards and information sharing approaches. The opportunity is to create access to information about data, metadata, that would accelerate analytical exercises, increase the quality of research, and increase visibility to support ethical and low friction information sharing between organisations, with trust as the foundation. Agreed, compatible, and documented approaches to working with data will improve clarity of understanding and transparency about what data is being moved around for what purposes.

3. Leverage and enrich New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure. Stats NZ’s IDI research data warehouse is a systemically significant asset in the New Zealand data landscape. It is the only platform that receives data about all New Zealanders, their use of public services, and national survey responses – New Zealand enjoys a privileged degree of understanding about how New Zealanders live. A significantly improved IDI would immensely benefit all New Zealanders and accelerate the benefits required for the Ardern Government’s wellbeing agenda to be a success.

Why New Zealand and why now?

If we focus on the social outcomes for the last ten years there can be no doubt that New Zealanders are changing the way we think about social and community wellbeing. Over the last 10 years New Zealand has improved its performance, not only relative to its own history but also in comparison to other countries. The OECD 2017 report on New Zealand stated,

“New Zealanders enjoy high living standards, with all components of the Better Life Index stronger than the OECD average, except for household disposable income and wealth… New Zealand substantially outperforms most other OECD countries on social connections, health status and overall environmental quality. High living standards are also reflected in a superior subjective measure of wellbeing. They are underpinned by robust institutions, good governance, generally best-practice policy settings, a stable macro-economy and a high-quality education system. New Zealand also performs well on gender inclusiveness, with one of the smallest gender wage gaps in the OECD.”

In New Zealand in 2019 there is an extraordinary degree of social trust which extends to willingness to support data-related initiatives such as Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure, SIA’s Data Protection and Use Policy and DIA’s proposed new AISAs (Approved Information Sharing Agreements) and MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) to make social data available to researchers and fluidly and transparently shared between government agencies.

Gross Domestic Product measures the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country, calculating the net value added by each economic actor. Systemic and entrenched inequality is not portrayed in GDP. In a world where 1% of the population owns more than 50% of the wealth, perhaps we should be asking who benefits from economic activity – not simply how much economic activity there is. Putting people and their data at the centre of the wellbeing agenda, making it the driver for public policy and spending may be the only way to achieve the visibility we need. Measuring consumption alone fails miserably as an indicator of our true wellbeing.

New Zealanders have given Jacinda Ardern’s government the license to explore various ways of designing and implementing sustainable wellbeing enhancing policies – but they cannot do it alone. This was highlighted by Deloitte’s Joey Au and Girol Karacaoglu in their recent paper “Beyond GDP – measuring New Zealand’s wellbeing progress” where they stated,

“The current Government has clearly signalled that it wants to frame, design, and implement public policy with an objective of increasing overall wellbeing, not just income, on a sustained basis. If academics, businesses and public servants do not lift their games and provide all the support we can to help the Government achieve this vision, we will have missed a unique opportunity – and we will have failed.”

Carol Feuerriegel, IGP,  Intel Leader – Information & Knowledge and GM, Information and Knowledge at Inland Revenue NZ; Advisory Board Member Information Governance ANZ

 

New Zealand Data and Wellbeing Resources

GCDS – Data Strategy and Roadmap for New Zealand (2018)

Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand – Ngā Tūtohu Aotearoa

Social Investment: A New Zealand Policy Experiment – Jonathan Boston & Derek Gill, BW Books 

SIA – Investing for social wellbeing, Engagement findings.

SIA – How we measure outcomes: A new approach to measuring changes in people’s wellbeing.

Stats NZ – Integrated Data, Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI)

Stats NZ – Integrated Data, Longitudinal Business Database (LDB)

Treasury – Living Standards Framework