In previous articles we have talked about why data is important for municipalities, What does it mean to govern them?, Why do we need to know what data we have?, how metadata helps us understand them, why data quality directly impacts public services i why master data —people, territory, facilities, entities or suppliers— are so important for working with common criteria.
However, there are questions that always end up appearing:
- Who should do all this?
- Who should decide what data is important?
- Who should describe them?
- Who should check if they are correct?
- Who is to say if they can be shared?
- Who should ensure that they are protected?
- Who should promote the use of data to improve municipal management?
This is a key issue. Because data governance is not just a set of concepts, tools or documents. It is also a way of organizing responsibilities. And this is especially important in small and medium-sized municipalities, where there are often no specialized data profiles or teams dedicated exclusively to these functions.
You don't have to start by creating a large structure.
When we talk about data roles, it may seem like we're talking about large organizations with data offices, analytics teams, quality managers, data architects, or artificial intelligence specialists. But a small city doesn't have to start there.
The first step is not to create many new positions. The first step is to understand what functions need to be filled and see how they can be assumed in a way that is proportional to the municipal reality. In many cases, these functions already exist informally.
There are people who know the register very well. Others know the files. Others know how economic data is constructed. Others have criteria on data protection, archiving, transparència, contracting, urban planning, social services or citizen care. What is needed is to make this knowledge visible, organize it and support it. Governing data does not mean that everyone has to be a data expert. It means that everyone understands what role they have in relation to the information they use, maintain or decide.
Political and managerial leadership: giving impetus and priority
Data governance needs institutional impetus. In a city council, political and managerial leadership plays an important role in setting priorities, legitimizing change, and preventing data management from being seen as a secondary or exclusively technical task. This does not mean that elected officials or managers need to know the technical details of information systems. It means that they need to understand that data is a public asset and that it must be managed judiciously.
Its main functions can be:
- promote a vision of the city council based on reliable data;
- prioritize areas where data can provide public value;
- support people who need to take on data roles;
- promote cooperation between areas;
- provide resources and time to organize information;
- ask for useful and understandable indicators for decision-making;
- ensure that technology is at the service of public needs.
Without this momentum, data initiatives may be reduced to one-off or volunteer efforts.
Secretariat and intervention: guarantees, procedure and control
In many small and medium-sized municipalities, the secretariat and intervention play a central role in municipal management. They can also play a very relevant role in data governance.
Secretariat can help link data with administrative procedures, files, document management, transparència, data protection and legal safeguards. They can help define conditions of use, limits, responsibilities and guarantees, especially when data is shared, published or reused for new purposes.
Intervention can provide criteria on economic, budgetary, accounting, subsidy, contracting and internal control data. These functions are essential so that data governance is not limited to “having data”, but ensures that data is used correctly, with guarantees and in accordance with public responsibilities.
The management areas: those who know the real meaning of the data
The management areas are key: census, urban planning, social services, culture, sports, environment, economic promotion, human resources, local police, citizen service or contracting work every day with data that has functional significance.
It is these areas that know what a piece of data really means, when it is correct, when it is incomplete, what errors are common, which fields are important and what it can be used for.
For example, social services knows which data is particularly sensitive and what context needs to be taken into account. Urban planning knows if an address, property or license is well interpreted. Citizens' attention knows which data generates more queries or more confusion. Culture knows if an activity is well classified. Census knows which data is critical to correctly identify residents.
Therefore, management areas are not just “users” of data. They are functionally responsible for the knowledge behind it.
In a local data governance model, these areas should help to:
- identify the main data sets;
- describe what they mean;
- detect quality problems;
- validate usage criteria;
- define information needs;
- participate in use cases;
- review indicators before they are used to make decisions.
The data steward: a bridge role
In more mature organizations, the figure of the data steward is often mentioned. In Catalan we could talk about data referent, functional data manager or business data manager. The name is not the most important thing. What matters is the function. This profile acts as a bridge between the municipal service, technology, data quality and management needs.
In a small municipality, there probably won't be a person dedicated solely to this function. But it can be useful to identify key people in some specific areas. For example, a key person for census data, one for facilities data, one for economic data, one for case data or one for social services data.
This reference person does not necessarily have to be an IT expert. It should be someone who is well-versed in information, processes and common problems.
Its functions can be:
- help describe data sets;
- identify critical data;
- detect and communicate quality incidents;
- validate definitions and criteria;
- help maintain metadata;
- coordinate with the ICT area or suppliers;
- participate in the definition of indicators;
- ensure that the data is used with functional meaning.
This function is very important because it prevents data from being disconnected from the service that generates and uses it.
The ICT area and suppliers: making technical management possible
Technology is necessary to manage data, but it should not decide alone what to do with the data.
The ICT area, where it exists, and technology providers play an essential role in ensuring that systems allow data to be recorded, accessed, protected, exported, integrated, preserved and reused with guarantees.
Its functions can be:
- Identify where the data is located
- Facilitate the extraction and integration of information
- Ensure security and access criteria
- Help automate quality controls
- Avoid unnecessary dependencies on closed formats
- Facilitate interoperability with other systems
- Guarantee copies, continuity and traceability
- Support inventory, catalog or dashboard tools
However, the ICT area cannot do this work alone. It needs the management areas to explain what the data means, which ones are priorities and what use they want to make of it. Good data management requires an alliance between functional knowledge and technological capacity.
Archives and document management: life cycle, evidence and traceability
Data does not exist in isolation from documents, files and administrative processes. For this reason, archiving and document management play a very relevant role in the governance of local data. These profiles provide knowledge about classification, information life cycle, conservation, elimination, administrative evidence, documentary metadata and traceability.
In many municipalities, the data that they want to analyze or reuse comes from files, documents, records or document management systems. If this information is not properly classified or does not retain the necessary context, it can lose value.
Archiving and document management can help:
- Define classification criteria
- Relate data to files and procedures
- Guarantee traceability
- Identify retention periods
- Preserve evidence
- Improve metadata
- Ensure that information remains understandable over time
Data governance should take much more advantage of this perspective, because it is especially valuable in public administration.
Data protection, security and transparència: essential guarantees
Local data governance must also include functions related to data protection, information security, transparència and good governance. These functions help define what data can be used, for what purposes, who can access it, what protection measures need to be applied, and what can be published.
Not all municipal data has the same level of sensitivity. Some data may be public, others may be internal, others may contain personal information, and others may require special protection. Therefore, before sharing, publishing, or reusing data, it is necessary to be clear about the limits and safeguards.
These features can help:
- Classify data according to sensitivity
- Define access criteria
- Review risks
- Ensure regulatory compliance
- Assess whether a data can be published
- Ensure the transparència without violating rights
- Promote ethical and responsible use of information
Data can generate a lot of public value, but only if it is used with trust and respect for citizens' rights.
Use case managers: turning data into concrete improvements
Data governance should not remain an internal exercise. It should serve to improve services. That is why it is important to identify those responsible for use cases.
A use case is a specific application of data to solve a need. For example, improving the quality of addresses, organizing municipal facilities, building citizen service indicators, detecting backlogs, analyzing energy consumption, or publishing higher-quality open data.
Each use case should have a person or driving area who understands the problem and can validate whether the solution adds value. This role can correspond to a management area, management, a cross-functional service or an internal working group. The most important thing is that use cases are not defined only from the technology point of view, but from real public management needs.
How to organize yourself in a small or medium-sized town hall?
A small or medium-sized city council can start with a very simple organization. There is no need to create complex committees or cumbersome formal structures. You can start with a small internal reference group, made up of people who know municipal management well.
This group could include, depending on the reality of each municipality:
- A person from the secretariat or general administration
- A person of economic intervention or management
- A person linked to ICT or the technology provider
- An archive or document management person
- One or two people from management areas with priority data
- A person with managerial or coordinating responsibility
This group shouldn't want to tackle everything. It could start with very specific tasks:
- Identify the main data sets
- Define functional managers
- Prioritize critical data
- Detect quality problems
- Agree on common criteria
- Drive a first use case
- Track simple improvements
The key is to start small, but with clear responsibilities.
The role of the Smart Local Government Network
Small and medium-sized municipalities do not have to define these roles alone or build their organizational data model from scratch.
The Smart Local Governments Network is working on a common data governance model for the local world. This model should help local entities have a shared reference on how to organize themselves, what functions need to be covered and how to adapt them to different municipal dimensions.
In addition, the Network has a working group on culture and training, aimed at enabling local entities to develop new institutional capacities in the field of data.
Within this framework, it is planned to develop a guide to professional profiles associated with government and data management. This guide should help describe the necessary organization, profiles, functions, skills and possible responsibilities linked to data.
This will be especially useful for small and medium-sized municipalities, because it will allow them to understand which functions can be assumed with existing staff, which may require supramunicipal support, which can be shared and which skills need to be developed progressively.
The value of the Network will be to convert a complex organizational challenge into a common, practical proposal that is adaptable to the local reality.
Towards new institutional capacities
Data governance is not just about incorporating technology. It also requires new capabilities within administrations to:
- Understanding the data
- Describe them
- Check its quality
- Protect them
- Share them
- Convert them into better indicators, decisions and services
These capabilities do not appear overnight. They must be identified, trained and recognized within the organization.
In some municipalities, this may mean creating new profiles. In others, it will mean assigning new functions to existing jobs. In many cases, it will require support from provincial councils, county councils, AOCs and other actors in the local public system.
The most important thing is to understand that data is not just a technical issue. It is an institutional capacity for better governance.
The AOC and the Local World Data Space
The Local World Data Space aims to help local entities advance in the responsible, secure and useful use of data. In this context, the AOC Consortium, in collaboration with provincial councils, county councils, the Generalitat, Localret and other local actors, can contribute to facilitating common models, shared services, tools, criteria and training spaces. This is key so that no city council has to start alone or improvise its own model. Data management must be a shared, coordinated and adapted task to the reality of each local entity.
Organizing responsibilities to generate public value
Knowing who does what is a basic condition for good data governance.
- If no one is responsible for a piece of data, the data deteriorates.
- If no one knows its meaning, it can be misinterpreted.
- If no one checks the quality, mistakes are repeated
- If no one controls access, risks may arise.
- If no one thinks about how to reuse it, public value is lost.
That's why local data governance doesn't start with big tools. It starts with clear responsibilities.
A city council can start by identifying the most important data, the people who know it best and the minimum functions that need to be covered. From there, with the support of the Smart Local Government Network, the Local World Data Space and the shared services of the local public system, it will be possible to move towards a more mature, more useful and more sustainable model.
Because governing data is not just about organizing information: it is about providing the city council with new capabilities to better serve citizens.
