Scaling Data Governance to National Policy

On the 12th of June, the IVI and the Empower Data Governance research group in Maynooth University launched an initiative that has the potential (and the goal) of radically improving the governance and management of data as an asset across Irish Society and to embed data governance discipline into national policy planning and implementation. It was launched with minimal fanfare, but its impact will resonate across all strands of government and social policy relating to data and how we put it to use.

Simply put: we have scaled discussion of data governance to a national policy level and have developed a framework and roadmap to integrate data governance principles at the national, organisational, and individual level, supporting the alignment of disparate data-related initiatives in government. It provides clear data governance principles, measurable benchmarks for maturity of data governance practice, and an evolving set of recommendations for policy makers and implementers.

This Roadmap is underpinned by a simple vision for Data Governance as an enabling capability for the information-enabled society.

Leading responsible governance of data and artificial intelligence, supporting AI, data mastery and leveraging data value as the basis of a sustainable information-enabled and data-informed society through the development of data capabilities, the alignment of data initiatives, and the development and
promotion of data literacy, contributing to benefits that span organisations, individuals and wider society

Source: Data Governance Roadmap for Ireland

Aligning and Enhancing, not replacing

The National Data Governance Roadamap has been developed to support the alignment and enhancement of efforts to improve the use of data in public and private sectors in Ireland and to develop an information-enabled economy. The framework looks at data governance capabilities through the lens of Leadership, Skills, Policy, and Technology and addresses the challenges and opportunities at three levels, National, Organisational, and Individual. This last bit is a critical innovation that sets the Irish National Data Governance Roadmap apart from other data governance roadmaps that have been developed for government agencies internationally.

Why is this important? The National Data Governance Roadmap for Ireland recognises data governance as a NATIONAL competence that needs to be developed as part of developing an information-enabled society. It puts the questions of Leadership, Skills development, Policy definition and implementation, and the adoption of technologies to support the good governance of data at a national policy level. This then cascades to Organisation level capabilities in data governance and, ultimately, to the development of individual level competencies in data and its responsible use and governance in the context of individual job roles or the task a person is performing in society.

This is joined up thinking for the future of an information-enabled economy. This is a framework that allows disparate policy initiatives to be aligned and prioritised based on how well they contribute to improving National, Organisational, or Individual level ability to put data to work responsibly.

Defining “Good” Looks Like

Another innovation in the National Data Governance Framework is the framing of the “definition of good”. A maturity scale is defined for each of the key capability areas. This is one of the areas for future detailed development, but for now a key element is the way in which the levels of maturity are labelled and defined. Rather than a bland ‘consultant-speak’ labelling of “Ad hoc, Emerging, Managed, Advanced, Optimised” or something similar, the team that put the Maturity Framework together opted instead for labels that clearly establish what the target baseline should be for all organisations.

The maturity scale is six levels from Absent (the thing isn’t there or done) to Enhancing (the thing is being done in a way that enhances an organisation or society or a person’s pride in a job well done). The middle tier on this scale, level 4, is labelled “Foundational”. In other words, this is the level that any other data initiative must be building from, and it’s the level that organsiations (particularly in this context public sector organisations) should be working towards.

I also note that, under the Policy capability at the Foundational level of maturity, the Data Governance Roadmap explicitly references the importance of data governance in maintaining the social history of a nation. And, critically, the foundational level requires data governance to be addressed as a distinct set of policies from the governance or implementation of technology.

Putting Principles in Practice

The four capabilities and the ‘definition of good’ in the maturity framework are, ultimately, simply tools to support the implementation of the vision that underpins the Roadmap. That Vision is, in turn, underpinned by a set of 11 principles which serve to put the human-factors of data and data governance a the centre of the roadmap, while at the same time ensuring that the role of regulation as an external driver of governance is recognised. Crucially, the principles also highlight the need for an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to data governance at a national and organisational level and the fact that any processing of data has the potential to impact on people.

The challenge will always be turning principles into practice, so the further development of the roadmap will need to examine each of these principles through the lens of the data governance capabilities (Leadership, Policy, Skills, Technology) and define objective statements of practice or measurable outcomes that can be used to evidence the principles at different levels of maturity.

But the scaffolding of a robust, socially-aware, integrated approach to data governance has been assembled.

Next Steps

The Castlebridge team was very honoured to be involved in the initiation of this Roadmap. Both our CEO Daragh O Brien and our Emeritus Advisor John Ladley made significant inputs into the crafting of the current roadmap in terms of the vision, principles, the overall framework, and the definition of the maturity scale and core data governance capabilities.

The next steps will be to keep that momentum going and ensure that the concepts and ethos of the Data Governance Roadmap are implemented in the forthcoming Public Sector Data Strategy and also in the development of implementing measures for legislation such as the EU AI Act.

This is the first time that a Data Governance roadmap has been defined that addresses data as a social and societal issue, not just as something pertaining to an organisation or group of organisations. The next few years building this out will be challenging and impactful!

Castlebridge looks forward to continuing our inputs to this initiative and supporting its roll out through training, advisory supports, and other contributions.

(And if you want to get training on Data Governance that includes reference to this National Data Governance Roadmap, our Data Governance for Leaders online course is running next month)