NSW govt to set up data

The NSW government is in the market for a central data analytics platform that will drive the operations of its new big data team and improve insight into how its procurement policies are working.

Innovation Minister Victor Dominello established the Data Analytics Centre (DAC) - housed within the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation - last year, complete with new powers to demand data sets from state agencies.

Its remit is to become a sort of data adjudicator that will guide inter-agency data exchanges and manage all the legal agreements that govern them.

With these foundations now bedded down, the team is setting up the infrastructure that will ingest the influx of information anticipated from agencies, which it hopes will lead to better informed and better targeted policy-making within the public service.

DAC is on the hunt for a cloud-based, web-accessible solution that will enable agencies and other third parties to upload their data sets, which will then be securely fed into a consolidated repository for integration and analysis.

It has outlined a high-level architecture of what it wants, featuring a portal where agencies can upload their data contributions, and also view and share dynamic visualisations of the subsequent analysis.

The solution will also include a data access layer and data storage layer, alongside a set of tools for creating dynamic dashboards, data cubes, reports and maps.

The department is insisting on a fully hosted, pay-as-you go solution, and indicated it will commit to a minimum three-year purchase period.

DAC’s stablemates at the NSW procurement office will also use the platform - with some data separation in place - as it looks to improve its spreadsheet-based process for tracking the amount of business that goes through its whole-of-government procurement schemes.