Quality of Victoria's critical data assets

Why this is important

The ability of government to make informed decisions is critical. Trusted high-quality data across government provides a foundation for confident decision-making, informs policy development, promotes data re-use and supports service delivery.

All Victorian Government departments and Victoria Police are required to comply with the government's Information Management Framework (IMF) and Data Quality Standard (DQS). Responsibility for the IMF and the DQS sits with the Department of Government Services.

The IMF and DQS define an approach to establishing and maintaining the quality of data assets within the Victorian Government by setting out minimum requirements for managing data quality for critical data assets. The DQS defines critical data assets as essential or important assets, which if severely compromised, degraded, rendered unavailable for an extended period or destroyed, would significantly impact the social or economic wellbeing of the organisation or Victorian community.

Despite compliance requirements, a recurring theme of our performance engagements is the presence of low-quality data or data of unassured quality. We have previously identified data quality issues in several critical datasets across the Victorian Public Service.

What we plan 
to examine

We plan to examine whether relevant Victorian Government agencies assure the quality of their critical data assets.

Who we plan 
to examine

All departments (with a particular focus on Department of Government Services as the department with oversight responsibilities) and Victoria Police.