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Data.NSW

Developing a Business Case for Data Sharing

You might need to help build a culture of data use and sharing in your organisation. Here are some arguments you can use to persuade your organisation of the value of data sharing and of the Data.NSW environment. 

Better access to data leads to better customer service and a more efficient government

  • Data is a key element of the digital transformation of NSW government
  • NSW government is moving to responsive models for decision making, which are aided by access to data
  • Access to more data allows agencies to more rapidly measure their approaches, and drive faster pivots based on evidence
  • Access to more data can lead to better informed investments and more comprehensive planning
  • Data sharing can enable better collaboration across all levels of government, to develop coordinated and evidence-based approaches.

All governments invest a lot of money in data and sharing data allows this investment to be maximisedEfficiency icon


Governments across Australia spend more than $10 billion each year in data collection and management.This data is needed to perform daily business operations, but, with the right privacy protections and management, this data can also be repurposed by other government agencies to improve planning, decision making and customer service outcomes.

Agencies are often unaware of the cross-government value of their data. Across government, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the benefit that can come from data sharing.

Data.NSW has been established to provide data sharing infrastructure for agencies that don’t have data infrastructure

Data.NSW:

  • Enables information sharing across government
  • Provides platforms for risk assessments and license rules to be determined once, and then have these rules govern all ongoing forms of data sharing
  • Creates a defensible model of sharing with trusted government partners
  • Builds a single federated catalogue of datasets
  • Establishes an environment where data stays under the control of your organisation, where centralised governance and legal models enable you to share data quickly
  • Simplifies and minimises the impact on agencies of data sharing requests
  • Provides good metrics about data use to help agencies understand where their services are being utilised, how their data is being used and the value it is providing.

Last updated 02 Jun 2020