Data Scores as Governance: Mapping and Analysing Changing Practices in the UK | bpb.de

Scoring systems are not naturally given. They rather depend on the political will and the rule of law. Citizens often reject their implentation, clashing with the interests of influential players from politics, economics and other spheres of public life. In Great Britain, for example, this approach is changing. At the local level the voices of citzens are gradually being included to analyse and enhance the acceptance among the local population and to detect mistakes in the data collected.

The research points to the need to better understand how the data systems being introduced are changing working practices of frontline professionalsand resource allocation and also how these systems, over the longer term, may shift government priorities and the way government agencies come to know and engage with people. For example,we raise concerns about how a focus on capturing and analysing data in relation to individuals may direct attention away from the need to capture data about the influence of positive or insulating factors that can reduce risk such as the presence of extended family networks or an after school program. More broadly it may focus responses solely on the individual or household, bypassing societal factors in the creation of social problems. Finally, we raise concerns about how an emphasis on risk assessment may lead to a broader shift in state operations as citizens become viewed less as co-creators of the societies they are part of and more as potential risks needing management(McQuillan 2018). There is a significant disparity between practitioners’ and stakeholder groups’ perspectives on the nature of challenges that emerge from uses of scoring systems and data analytics in public services more generally demonstrating the need to bring these groups together and expand cross-sector debate and enhance the means for meaningful citizen participation and intervention.

• Produktion: 11.10.2019

• Spieldauer: 24 Min.

• hrsg. von: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb