DAERA Information Hub
"From Clipboard to Dashboard" - Digital Leaders 100 Awards
Welcome to our Digital Leaders 100 Awards entry in the categories of " Geospatial Innovation of the Year " and " Big Data Innovation of the Year ".
We have created this StoryMap to showcase why we should win, using the very technology that the DAERA Information Hub is built on... Esri ArcGIS
Denis McMahon, the Permanent Secretary of DAERA
The implementation of the DAERA Information Hub has been transformational and enabled the department to identify, view, and bring together their data in a completely different way, enabling more informed and effective policymaking decisions. Using the Information Hub the department can better understand how inputs and processes influence outcomes for food production, pollution, and climate change in NI. The development of an Emergency Portal within the Information Hub is another important tool for the department, helping provide valuable and near real-time information to senior management and staff across the department to better deal with key issues during the Covid-19 pandemic.
From Clipboard to Dashboard: The Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has undergone a seismic shift in its operating model through this Digital Transformation Project. Our Information Hub implemented in partnership with Esri Ireland has and will continue to bring benefits, to not only DAERA but to the Farm businesses, the Economy, and the Environment of Northern Ireland. DAERA and Esri Ireland have combined world-class technology, with high-quality management and implementation processes to create the truly innovative Information Hub.
The Background
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) formed in May 2016 through departmental restructuring across the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS).
We have 3,000 employees and an annual budget of £500 million.
Our remit includes Food and Farming, the Environment, Fisheries, Forestry, Animal and Plant Health.
Esri Ireland is our technology partner, providing the software and capabilities to help make the Information Hub a reality.
Their business is built on the belief that knowing where things happen matters. They are a software and services organisation specialising in the application of Geographic Information Systems or "GIS".
Esri Ireland employs over 60 staff from its offices in Holywood and Dublin and works with the public sector, the private sector, and the third sector to help organisations maximise the use of their location information.
The Challenge
As a relatively new department, we faced a number of challenges that we wanted to address with the Information Hub.
The department lacked strategic alignment across all the business areas.
There was no single source of truth of corporate data accessible to operational staff, policy staff, and decision-makers.
Across the department, there were many data silos where data was being captured or acquired for one business area that could save costs and help inform policies in other areas.
We had limited business intelligence capability across the department, which meant that we could not use our rich evidence base to inform policy and operational change.
Many of our workflows and processes were still paper-based and manual.
There was limited mobile technology across the department. The time to capture agricultural or environmental data in the field and have this data quickly available back in the office was hampering the ability to quickly address emergencies as they arose.
The Process
So how did we start to address our Challenges?
In order to align our thinking across the department, we needed to create a shared vision, goals, objectives, and strategies.
We understood that the key to the success of any digital transformation project was to bring our stakeholders along on the journey with us.
So before any solutions were proposed we carried out a significant Data Gathering exercise. We met with individual teams and ran workshops with representatives from across all business areas to understand what they needed and what they had to offer. From this exercise, we created our Road Map for Success.
An Organisational Development Plan was launched with a focus on Strategic Alignment, Business Integration, and Customer Experience.
To ensure our stakeholders were involved every step of the way we created two formal groups to represent the needs and issues of the business areas.
We created an Oversight Board with representatives from all business areas and we created a Technical User Forum. These groups were involved in everything from the GIS Strategy to the look and feel of the Information Hub and the themes that the data and applications would be grouped under.
Strategies
We developed a Data Strategy with the vision statement:
Creating an insight-driven organisation, placing data at the heart of all decision making.
A complimentary GIS Strategy was also developed along with a three-year roadmap to enable strategic alignment and business integration.
The Success
The Information Hub has been a massive success for DAERA.
For the first time, all staff in DAERA have access to a central system currently containing over 400 high-value datasets and associated analysis tools to enable them to conceptualise what effect potential policy decisions will make on the environment, or the economy before they are implemented. We can examine past trends and analyse the success of previous schemes.
It currently boasts over 2880 users both internal and external.
In conjunction with our delivery partners Esri Ireland, we have combined world-class technology, with high-quality management and implementation processes to create the truly transformational and innovative Information Hub.
This technology is at the heart of the department, enabling us to improve organisational excellence, to meet our business plan targets and our objectives under the New Decade, New Approach deal.
The Information Hub has been a vital enabler for meeting the departmental target to move to 95% digital correspondence by 2022.
Our target to publish 30 datasets to OpenDataNI this year has been exceeded, with over 60 datasets having been published from the Information Hub in a new fully automated process.
We currently have a satisfaction rating of 4.5 out of 5 for the Information Hub with excellent customer and stakeholder feedback.
Another significant benefit is the speed at which the technology can be deployed for emergencies such as COVID-19, Brexit, and the fastest app deployment of 10 days for the Avian flu outbreak.
The success of the Information Hub has also been recognised externally through the following recent achievements:
- Winner of the Digital DNA - Innovation Project of the Year (2021) award
- Shortlisted for the UK IT Awards - Digital Transformation Project of the Year (2020) award
Data, Data, Data
We are sharing our data like never before! The Information Hub is allowing us to collaborate and share across multiple business areas within our department.
But not only that! We are now collaborating across government departments at a data level, sharing the information securely via the Information Hub. Ensuring that we are all working off the single source of truth as we build policies and strategies for the future.
And in line with the Department of Finance's Open Data Policy, we are publishing significantly more datasets to OpenDataNI . For the first time, we are doing this in an automated way to ensure that the information presented is up-to-date and relevant.
As an example, the mapviewer presented here shows the latest results for the Farm Census carried out in 2019. This data is available on OpenDataNI .
The map depicts the predominant Farm animal across Northern Ireland at a District Electoral Area Level. Being able to share the Farm Census as open data allows our stakeholders to use the information to support planning and policy decisions.
Mobile Technology
A major outcome of the project is access to mobile technology for all teams that need to complete work in the field. Below we have detailed just one of the teams that have benefited from this new solution.
The Veterinary Service Animal Health Group within DAERA has completely transformed its animal disease investigation process, swapping paper forms on clipboards for field-based survey apps and online dashboards. Using its new digital workflows, DAERA can now respond more quickly to animal welfare concerns and instigate the most appropriate measures to prevent the spread of disease.
BENEFITS
- 80% faster animal welfare interventions
- 33% increase in farm inspections
- Consistent assessment of animal health risks
- Clear visibility of ‘the bigger picture'
- Up to 40 staff redeployed to deliver added value
- Real-time 'risk rating' using Smart Form technology
The interactive dashboard shown here allows managers to monitor the progress of inspections.
Find out more on the how the Information Hub is helping support the Veterinary Service Animal Health Group in this Case Study .
Another example output of the Information Hub is the Northern Ireland Marine Mapviewer.
The Marine Mapviewer brings together a wide range of previously disparate marine-related spatial datasets. This provides users with the ability to view marine characteristics and uses in relation to each other, helping to paint an overall picture of what happens where within the Northern Ireland marine area. Data themes within the Mapviewer range from Aquaculture, Energy, and Natural Heritage to Shipping, Heritage Assets, and Tourism & Recreation.
The Mapviewer is of primary importance to marine users and decision-makers. It also helps support the Marine Planning process.
All of this is made possible by sharing up-to-date, authoritative information from the Information Hub to the public, helping address our goal to be a more transparent and engaged department.
The central data repository and innovative platform provided by our Information Hub allows us to quickly create Mapviewers such as this to support initiatives across Northern Ireland.
The Future
DAERA is poised to use the foundations we have laid to exploit this leading-edge technology platform. Through our Esri Enterprise Agreement, we have access to technology that can take advantage of the latest hot topics in tech.
We can start to use more and more real-time data from multiple types of sensors to monitor everything from weather, to plant health, to animal movement.
We can take advantage of advancements in imagery processing to consume drone footage and satellite imagery that cab be used to create 3D models of landscapes and buildings.
We can use even more mobile technology to track, manage and monitor assets in real-time.
We can start to leverage machine learning to help predict trends and answer complex environmental questions.
The Information Hub
Thank you for taking the time to review our entry for the Digital Leaders 100 Awards 2021. We hope you have enjoying exploring our StoryMap and we leave you with a short video further outling the capabilities and benefits provided by the DAERA Information Hub.