‘Cinderella resource’ could be key to public sector success in managing austerity, says Socitm in new report on information management

A 'Cinderella resource', ill-understood and poorly managed by public sector organisations, holds the potential to protect them from the worst consequences of the current financial crisis.

In a new report, Managing information: managing the lifeblood of the organisation, Socitm says that, while technology has increased our ability to harvest, process and store information, the ability to manage, control and exploit it has failed to keep pace.

One unfortunate consequence is that almost all the known routes suggested for the public sector to achieve 'more with less' - be they shared services, flexible working, customer self-service, re-engineering services, or even the  latest 'fix', cloud computing - require their employees and customers to have easy access to top-quality, reliable information.

The tendency of public sector organisations to overlook the management of its information, and the training of managers and staff in how to handle it, will, therefore, compromise their ability to deal effectively with the current crisis.

The report provides an analysis of how organisations use information, and how information management (or lack of it) affects people 'at the sharp end' trying to do complex and difficult jobs with limited resources.

Included in the report are detailed case studies from Hackney and Bridgend councils. Both have acknowledged the importance of information management and set about tackling the huge task of managing their information assets properly so that they can be used to improve the lives of the communities that they serve, either directly or indirectly.

Illustrated by these examples, the report explains how, at the most fundamental level, government and third sector organisations collect data from their millions of individual transactions with individuals, suppliers and each other, every day. It shows how organisations aggregate and analyse this data to produce information to supports decision-making for service delivery, internal processes, and for longer-term, strategic purposes.

Failure to provide access the right information at the right time, and lack competence in information handling, says the report, lead to many everyday mistakes and inefficiencies, but also to headline grabbing tragedies like the Baby Peter, and Soham cases, as well as incidents of data loss that undermine public confidence in the sector's ability to handle personal data competently.

The report also presents worrying evidence that, the further up the hierarchy that decisions are made, the more likely it is that these rely on an individual's experience and knowledge, rather than on hard evidence drawn from skilful interpretation of reliable data.

The report concludes with advice about how to tackle these problems. Organisations should examine how they are using information at each point around the information life-cycle. In general, the appropriate technologies are available and well understood. It is their deployment and use that are more problematic, as well as the behaviours and cultures of people involved in the operations.

'We are drowning in information' says report author and Socitm Insight associate Chris Head, 'and yet it seems difficult to assemble reliably the facts that we need for day-to-day operations and strategic choices. Our research shows that public and third sector organisations must grasp the information management nettle, and commit to the necessary training, if we are to build the information age culture that has never been more important.'

Copies of the 76 page report are available free of charge to Socitm Insight subscribers and can be downloaded from the website by any employee of a subscribing organisation, provided they are registered on the website.

Non-subscribers can buy the report for £175, or £150 if they are individual members of Socitm

Notes for editors

Information about the Managing information: managing the lifeblood of the organisation can be found on the Managing information: managing the lifeblood of the organisation pages of the socitm website.

Further information

Vicky Sargent, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 07726 601 139  e-mail: vicky.sargent@socitm.net

Martin Greenwood, Programme Manager, Socitm Insight
Tel: 01926 498703 or 07967 383755  e-mail: martin.greenwood@socitm.net