Public sector and local government organisations are always on the lookout for ways to meet increasing demand whilst delivering costs savings. This is about rethinking how to provide services that are convenient for users not providers, giving them greater choice and control. Those services also need to be accessed fairly by everyone, especially as we move to "digital by default". As a consequence, an increasing number of public sector organisations are looking to make better use of their data to overhaul service delivery and drive greater efficiencies.
There are many ways the public sector can improve efficiency including service redesigns, organisation wide cultural shifts and process changes. Unsurprisingly data visualisation and data analytics have a big role to play in supporting decision making when it comes to driving efficiencies in each of these areas.
Here are just some of the ways that you could use data analytics and visualisation to improve services and deliver a better customer experience:
- Plan new services and how they'll be delivered by combining demographic data about service users and their needs on a map with data from internal systems, to help identify trends and patterns, and model different scenarios.
- Optimise current services, by combining data from internal and external sources to identify where to put resources and match workload, skills and location to create more efficient schedules for staff.
- Deliver more with existing resources, by helping mobile staff become more efficient, with schedules that minimise travel time and access to all the information they need in one place – on a map and accessible on a smartphone or tablet.
- Improve inter-agency working, by bringing together data from multiple agencies on a single map. Residents do better when social services, healthcare providers, schools and colleges, housing associations, the benefits agency and charities are all talking to each other.
- Provide a better experience for residents, by adding maps to websites and mobile apps to help them quickly find out where to access services – from libraries to council-run car parks – or check on disruptions such as roadworks.
If you want to find out more about how Big Data and data visualisation using the Google Cloud Platform can help your organisation gain new insights and make data-driven decisions much more quickly - come and talk to our experts. 