Page 392 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS507 Vince G. et al.
“virtuous cycles” of information sharing. As agencies make more use of their
own data in the context of it being linked it to other agencies data, the drive
to standardise practices arises out of the need to solve their own business
problems
In New Zealand it has become clear that individual researchers who are
more active in maintaining personal networks are doing better in making good
use of linked data. They are able to overcome dependency on agencies and
individuals within agencies to get enough metadata and general intelligence
about using data files to produce work that crosses agencies and sectors.

The Impact of the IDI and our biggest Lessons
The IDI has become a corner stone of the work of the social sector in
Government in New Zealand. Social agencies compiling business cases are
required to have an evidence base of the wider aspects of their proposals and
this inevitably requires them to use the IDI. The biggest impact has been to
raise the bar for what constitutes adequate evidence in a business case.
From the perspective of the provider of the service the experience has
highlighted the enormous value of getting started and learning as you go.
Taking the opportunity to build up extensive data resources has been at the
core of the value of the IDI and had created a sense of “potential that needs
to be realised” in the wider government.

5. Understanding the work being done by the analyst community
With Government acting so separately, no small effort is required to keep
track of what is happening in the analytics community around us. Stats NZ
looks to expand its ability through participating in the local analytics
community as activity as we can;
 By providing leadership to attempts to build communities of analysts
This has taken the form of trying to help establish a Government Analytics
Network (GAN), taking a leadership role in the Artificial Intelligence forum and
supporting a wider community of interest known as the NZ Data Analytics
Forum. The experience of participating in these networks has been very mixed,
with it usually being the case that information sharing is much easier to
achieve than collaboration unless an imperative to resolve a pressing issue
exists.
 Participating in the market as a provider and purchaser of services
Stats NZ has established its own Data Ventures unit6, to look at how we
can explore commercial opportunities to acquire data and develop products
around the data. We are also investing in developing our consulting function.
In the course of executing our own work we have also spent considerable time
talking to Analytics consulting firms about what data sources, methods and

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