Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Paragraph: 44
Government departments fail to share data due to lack of incentives and central coordination.
Conclusion
Despite the passage of relevant legislation in 2017, the UK has failed to bring its disparate datasets together to enrich its public evidence base. Instead, data withers in silos across countless government bodies. Witnesses to our inquiry were clear; the problems here are not legislative, and they do not result from challenges around data protection. The issue is much simpler; departments and public bodies choose not to share data because they do not share an incentive to do so. And no central, coordinating leader has yet made a sufficiently strong case for the benefits of sharing data for statistics and research across government.
Paragraph Reference:
44
Government Response
A response document is linked to this report, dated 6 March 2025. Response attribution to this conclusion has not been verified. Read the response document ↗