Data Foundation Board Chair Kris Rowley and President & CEO Nick Hart write about the importance of CDOs for NextGov:
An August analysis from the Labor Department concluded that an astounding one-third of all payments issued under the enhanced unemployment insurance program in 2020 were improper. This is often to no fault of the users navigating complex government processes. But this is a tremendous government failure because we had the data needed to verify claims before payments were issued.
It sounds so simple to say that we should use data to improve our society, make decisions, and guide our daily actions. The Labor Department demonstrates the challenge. With better data matching to verify claims, we could have prevented much of the $47 billion in improper payments…
What should be done to address issues like this? We must intentionally focus on managing data to support programs, planning for current and future needs. Fortunately, in 2018, Congress had insight when creating the role of the chief data officer, or CDO, in government agencies as a leader to work across programs to govern data. Every agency — including the Labor Department — should now have a CDO.Why does a chief data officer matter?…