Page 391 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS507 Vince G. et al.
The scope of the IDI
The IDI contains deidentified person-centred microdata from a range of
government agencies, Stats NZ surveys (including the 2013 Census), and non-
government organisations. To integrate datasets, Stats NZ links information
together using identifiable data, including first and last name, date of birth,
age, sex, and country of birth. There are eight broad categories of data in the
IDI, covering Health, Education and training, Benefits and social services,
Justice, People and communities, Population, Income and work and Housing
data.

Key aspects of providing the IDI as a service.
 We gave priority to data expansion over system usability investment
A unique combination of circumstances arose that provided Stats NZ with
the opportunity to be entrusted with extensive data holdings from across
Government. The wider political environment meant that for a period of time
agencies across the New Zealand Government felt some compulsion to get
their data into the IDI. Stats NZ took the view that we would be better placed
to take advantage of this circumstance than focus on creating a perfect data
base. The consequence was that the IDI took in data from 40 agencies, rather
than the 10 that had originally been planned but there have been some
struggles to optimise the performance of the IDI software systems. Without
taking this opportunity, Stats NZ may still be arguing over the design for an
integrated data system.
 Establishing a sense of collective ownership
The IDI team within Stats NZ is embedded at nearly every step of the
production process, bearing the bulk of the workload rather than spreading it
across the system. Fewer than 20 of the almost 300 currently active IDI projects
(April 2019) are undertaken by Stats and along with stakeholders and partners
Stats NZ views the IDI as a system asset. Partnerships, both within and outside
Government are essential, but are currently limited to prioritising new data
sources and some sharing of findings.
More active partnerships will have two main benefits. Firstly they will
ensure that the maintenance of the system, and continued innovation, is a
system-wide undertaking and is not compromised by one ministry or sector’s
priorities; and, secondly, they will help increase trust and buy-in from the
people represented in the data, to ensure research that flows from the IDI is
sustained and trusted.
 Stimulating Community building among researchers
The group of people who have become users of the IDI have the sort of
diversity that might be expected. This community can be broadly described as
IDI Experts, Subject Matter Experts, Methodological researchers and
production Modellers. It became clear early that is was important to create

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