Data quality ‘critically important to governments’

Governments should have strategies in place to bring about high data quality standards, it has been advised.

This is the view of Laurence Miller, editor-at-large of the Future Gov website, who said public sector administrations create and manage much more information than private companies.

Despite this, many government departments are failing to get proper command over their records and are therefore unable to make the most of the data they have at their disposal.

Mr Miller recommended such bodies think about making use of data-as-a-service tools to aid their operations in this area.

"By applying data-as-a-service in 2011, governments can achieve improvements in agility, cost-effectiveness and data quality, three areas of critical importance to government in the 21st century," he said.

Earlier this month, IT Business Edge reported the comments of Forrester master data management expert Rob Karel, who explained data quality investments will provide positive business outcomes when applied to the most critical processes within an organisation.