The data explosion which the public sector is being faced with means the use of analytics is now non-negotiable for the South African government.
This is the view of Kroshlen Moodley, head of public sector at SAS Southern Africa, who points out the explosion of data within the public sector is a result of the collaboration between different government departments in an effort to improve service delivery.
He notes this collaboration became evident over the past 10 to 15 years, as government started to advocate the concept of e-government, mostly to gain a single view of the citizen, and at the same time, to improve on service delivery.
"So the focus has become very much citizen-centric. What happens when the situation becomes citizen-centric is the need for collaboration between government departments. This translates to the collection of information on the citizens across departments, and the measurement of government performance in delivering services to the citizens becomes necessary," says Moodley.
Evaluating performance
He notes that this sort of information needs to be together, because essentially, government is combining information from different data sources, so it knows the specific requirements of each individual citizen. He believes this will make it possible for government to monitor the progress, evaluate performance outcomes and the impact they would have made to improve the citizen experience.
Moodley believes big data is another focus area, where government must make use of analytics, adding the data explosion, as a result of the proliferation of mobile devices within South Africa, has been instrumental in increasing citizen participation, and demanding transparency and accountability of government.
"I am seeing phenomenal growth in terms of social media data within the government space. Things like sentiment analysis - when we talk about government and citizen sentiment - I think, for the first time, we are in a position where governments can use analytics to gauge citizens' sentiment towards them. This can help government campaigns, and was instrumental in Barack Obama's success in securing the key votes needed to put the Democrats in the White House for the current and last political term."
Moodley also points out that government now has the ability to use analytics to analyse data and support outcomes-based decision-making. "Using analytics in the public sector will enable government to answer specific questions facing the growth of the economy; identify challenges in social grant administration; improve education outcomes; increase job creation initiatives to reduce unemployment; and improve public security. This can be done by applying analytics to departmental data in conjunction with the three sets of national census data, to evaluate the impact of their service delivery programmes from 1996 to 2011.
Start now
"I think the use of analytics now is getting to a point where it's non-negotiable. Government must start using analytics more effectively to support evidence-based decision-making and to also achieve the outcomes that it would have set during the planning process," says Moodley.
He also believes government can only achieve the goals it set in the National Development Plan (NDP) by making use of analytics to support the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the key outcomes.
"If I look at the outcomes of the NDP; in order to achieve its 12 outcomes, we need to have an idea of where we are at the moment. We need to focus on how we manage and drive key interventions to support the 12 outcomes that will achieve the objectives of poverty alleviation and reducing inequalities within our society. We also need to look at some of the evils to society, like corruption, that undermine the fabric of our constitution and inhibit our progress to develop as a nation."
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