Unit 1 Assignment 2 Why A Big Data Strategy

transform service design and delivery so that personalised and streamlined services, that accurately and specifically meet individual’s needs, can be delivered to them in a timely manner.

Improved service delivery could cover areas as diverse as remote medical diagnostics, major infrastructure management, personalised social security benefits delivery, improved first responder and emergency services, reduction of fraudulent or criminal activity across both government and private sectors, and the development of innovative new services as the growth and availability of Public Sector Information (PSI) becomes more prevalent.

The private sector holds huge amounts of data about its customers and in many cases leads the way in how this data is

The development of a big data strategy was initiated by the APS ICT Strategy 2012 – 2015 (ICT Strategy) which highlighted the need for a strategy to enhance cross-agency data analytic capability for improved policy and service delivery.

The big data strategy is intended for agency senior executives and business program managers. It is designed to highlight key opportunities and challenges that big data will bring to government agencies. The strategy will aim to assist agencies to take advantage of these opportunities and realise the potential benefits of these new technologies. This strategy will also consider a coordinated approach, across government, for the adoption of big data analytics technologies.

The strategy will deliver on elements of the ICT Strategy. Big data allows for more focused and evidence-based policy design and service implementation that in turn allows citizens to interact with the government in a personalised and seamless way. As awareness of the benefits of big data increases there is likely to be an increase in public debate regarding the balance of benefits versus the challenges associated with the technology. Government agencies need to be in a position to consider external expert opinion and enunciate their own position on the use of the

Opportunities for Australian Government agencies

The opportunity that big data presents to government agencies is in the potential to unlock the value and insight contained in the data agencies already hold via the transformation of information, facts, relationships and indicators. The value of big data for agencies is limited by the their ability to effectively manage the volume, velocity and variety of big data and the ability to derive useful information from this data. With every opportunity there come challenges or barriers and agencies must overcome these to enable the benefits of big data to be realised.

Consideration of advances in big data technology has shown that it has potential to enhance the government’s analysis capability in areas such citizen-centric service delivery. It is evident that big data also provides insights into social networks and relationships as well as allowing for the development of predictive models for a number of applications.

Of interest more broadly to agencies, big data analysis may provide profound insights into a number of key areas of society including health care, medical and other sciences, transport and infrastructure, education, communication, meteorology and social