Britain is home to the largest data economy in Europe, and improving the use of data could increase productivity growth by as much as 1.3% per year, delegates to the Summit heard.

It was said during one session that using data better could lead to more efficient delivery of public services, and that data increasingly underpins innovation and productivity across all eight of the Government’s Industrial Strategy sectors.

“You can't achieve Government's missions for change without data. Ministers are talking to us regularly about the opportunities, and how we can deliver fast.”

Chris Chambers, the Deputy Director of Government Digital Service at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

He added that £1.9 billion of investment is being provided to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology over the current Spending Review period to drive digital priorities.

A need for a shift in thinking

National Highways’ Director of Digital Technical Competence, Davin Crowley-Sweet called for a shift in thinking away from viewing infrastructure assets as simply physical. He also urged large infrastructure companies to invest in upskilling staff in the language of data.

Davin asked bosses to consider whether they are giving data leaders adequate training, and called for a bold step to increase the kudos of digital professionals. “What I would love to do in a few years is to meet the first chartered data professional – that would represent a career highlight if it happened.

“We need a big grand building in Westminster that is home to an institution of data professionals, where people can get accredited and receive support and guidance,” he said. “The UK needs to meet that challenge.”

Clearly articulating the problems

Melissa Tallack of Stream – a data sharing infrastructure platform for the water sector – spoke of the importance of clearly articulating the problems, challenges or opportunities in society that using data better can achieve.

She added that learning to “tell the story” of the benefits of using data to deliver societal gain first will give sector specialists a chance later to elaborate on the data detail.

“We need to start with language that is understood by individuals and organisations. Start talking about data, and most people in a room will switch off.”

Melissa Tallack, Stream

Miranda Sharp, the Chief Executive of Metis Digital spoke of the value of exchanging data with other stakeholders, but acknowledged that because there is often little value placed on data, “there are relatively few tools at our disposal to support what is a fair value exchange, when we are sharing data and investing in data and using other people's data.”

She also spoke of the need to keep people without data experience engaged in conversations on the subject. “The problem is when data is your favourite subject, you may fall into shortcuts and terms you use every day which other people don't know.”

Davin Crowley-Sweet agreed with the need to clearly define terms around data. “Data language is bizarre, so data literacy is an important and misunderstood skill.”

He pointed out that everyone – and not just civil engineers – knows the purpose of a bridge. But how many people, he asked, know what an ‘enterprise service bus’ is beyond data specialists?

“If you want more people to have a conversation with you about outcomes, don't use a language which shuts off 90% of them.”

Reflecting on the session, Connected Places Catapult’s Data and Digital Strategy Engagement Director, Ali Nicholl, said: “The Modern Industrial Strategy highlighted that data is one of the UK’s unrealised growth assets, and a foundational infrastructure that the IS-8 high-growth sectors identified by Government rely on.

“We already know what happens when physical infrastructure is under‑invested: fragility, outages, and a hidden tax on growth. The same is now true of data and digital. Treated like infrastructure – secured, maintained and assured – data isn't an internal IT concern, but a business asset.”

“Focusing on the role data plays will allow proof to travel, trust to compound and investment to flow with confidence. Get the foundation right, and innovation stops restarting at every boundary, enabling enterprises to adopt at scale, improve productivity, and drive growth.”

Ali Nicholl, Data and Digital Strategy Engagement Director, Connected Places Catapult

Read a post event report from the Connected Places Summit.