Valuing Public Sector Data in Scotland and Europe: Data Governance for Economic, Environmental and Social Development

Data is collected by many different kinds of people and organisations, including the government and big businesses but also ordinary people. Data can give us many benefits and opportunities to improve society, the economy and the environment, and it can therefore meet the needs of diverse, plural publics. Doing this requires a good understanding of data and its uses in order to navigate this landscape, beginning with clarity about the range of issues and the definitional challenges around data and its rich complexities.

The ‘Valuing Public Sector Data in Scotland and Europe: Data Governance for Economic,
Environmental and Social Development’ Programme, funded by the (now retired) Scottish
Universities Insight Institute between October 2023 and January 2024, was a timely exploration into public (sector) data’s benefits and challenges. During the programme, the nuances of ascribing value to data, and how that data may contribute in good – and bad – ways to the general public, were discussed and explored. We considered how ‘public data’ is gathered and used, and by whom, in Scotland, the European Union and beyond, identifying key insights to inform further research and policymaking in this area.

Here we give some context for our programme on public data, before providing an overview
of the workshops we ran and key insights which emerged from them. Against this backdrop, we present a set of recommendations for policymakers under the following themes which
emerged from our programme:
1 Definitions of ‘public data’
2 Public understandings of data use
3 Value
4 Digital literacy
5 Health data, financial data and data related to
the criminal justice system
6 Data sharing
7 AI considerations