Making data work harder for Scotland

What’s the opportunity?

Existing data, systems and expertise make Scotland well-placed to reclaim its role as an international leader in data-driven innovation and adjacent fields such as machine learning and AI, and to become the international partner of choice for the assembly of trustworthy data ecosystems. Supporting Scotland as a leading centre of data research would also bring significant economic and social benefits.

Together with our partners in research, government, Public Health Scotland, National Records of Scotland, the private sector, and with UK-wide partners including HDR UK, ADR UK and the Office for National Statistics, RDS has made real progress in aligning and simplifying the data for research system. But there’s more to be done and our health, economy and public services can’t afford for us to wait.

• An external evaluation of the Administrative Data Research (ADR) UK programme found that for every £1 invested, there is just over £5 of value returned. Scotland has historically been a leader in data research within the UK. However, the ADR evaluation now identifies Scotland as a negative outlier within the UK regarding efficient data access, as processes for linking data across different public sector sources are too complex compared to the other UK nations.
• The UK data economy (its data market plus the value data adds to other sectors of the economy) represents an estimated 6.9% of GDP (as of 2022). In 2021, data-enabled UK service exports accounted for 85% of total service exports, estimated to be worth £259 billion.
• A 2019 report by EY estimated that making better use of NHS data has the potential to bring benefits worth £5 billion per year to the NHS itself (in terms of operational savings, enhanced patient outcomes and generation of wider economic benefits to the UK) and deliver £4.6 billion per year in benefits to patients.

How can government and others support this capability which benefits our health, economy and public services?

To realise the potential return on investment behind both the UK and Scottish Government’s investments in data research, and the benefits this capability brings to our health, economy and public services, we’re calling on the next Parliament to:

• Recognise the essential role of linked data in providing an evidence base for public sector reform and addressing complex societal problems such as child poverty and economic growth
• Set the expectation within government departments and public bodies to reuse and share their data for research in the public benefit
• Commit to invest in the safe computing infrastructure and expertise in the Scottish Safe Haven Network rather than spending to develop new secure data services, and support Research Data Scotland’s efforts to encourage wider investment from elsewhere
• Ensure public sector data and data infrastructure are appreciated in policy and investment terms as essential enablers for the adoption of AI in public service delivery
• Align where appropriate with relevant UK-wide health data initiatives like the Health Data Research Service, and thereby enable interoperability and cross-nation collaboration on data research
• Reaffirm the commitment made in both the Health and Social Care Data Strategy and Pandemic Preparedness Review to a service that provides quick access to linked research data for government, academia and industry
• Implement the recommendations co-produced with the Scottish Government to improve how data for research is stored in Scotland’s National Safe Haven