The Intelligent Welfare State

The Intelligent welfare state

The Intelligent welfare state uses data and advanced analytics to develop new practices in response to new and increasingly complex challenges. SAS® advanced analytics ensure a close link between society’s resources to ensure the prerequisites for providing the best welfare services and growth are met. Evidence-based forecasts and insights can lead to better decisions within a variety of political areas, and allow for measurement of both the efforts made and their derived impact.

• Digital transformation is an on-going process on the road to becoming an intelligent welfare state. Digital transformation should be considered in every aspect of problem solving, interaction and communication with citizens and businesses in all public organizations.
• Focus needs to be on optimization through efficiency, automation and documentation of work processes, as well as on building a data-driven public administration that uses every opportunity for new and better utilization of data. This will ensure that both citizens and businesses experience a greater coherence, logic and user-friendliness.
• Greater dependence on data increases the demand for high standards of data security for the public agencies that handle personal data. This will only increase in importance when the new EU personal data protection mandate goes into effect May 25, 2018.
• The skillsets and competences in the public sector can be strengthened by making innovative, technological expertise available through knowledge sharing with other sectors.
• Digital transformation enables insight and transparency in the use of public sector resources, while data-based knowledge offers senior officials new, better and faster ways to act.
• The paradigm shift that is needed to succeed with the digital transformation, requires that top leaders in the public sector are prepared with the right resources to initiate, control and implement the necessary changes.

SAS helps leaders in government increase employment by turning data into knowledge

Not everyone is employed. Most people, however, want to contribute actively to society.

There are fewer and fewer workers in the job market, presenting the public sector with challenges to sustaining their social safety nets. This can only be reversed by bringing more people into the job market, which promises two benefits: 1) A reduction in public spending and 2) An increase in tax revenues.

The unemployed have diverse needs. The strongest among the unemployed do not have as much need for re-schooling or job search assistance; they can often help themselves. The weakest, on the other hand, face a myriad of challenges ranging from interpersonal and work skills to demographics, which often restrict opportunities for returning to work quickly, if at all.

Since resources at unemployment agencies and unemployment benefits from unions and local communities are scarce, it is necessary to prioritize constituents in accordance to needs. Such an approach addresses issues of social fairness as well as fiscal benefits to local governments.

Although much data is available that highlights what has worked best in the past, we have yet to use data effectively enough to achieve job-creating growth.

Digitalizing public services

Digitalization increases the overall administrative effectiveness as well as productivity in specialized functional departments that interacts with the citizens. Intelligently applied, data creates a vehicle for modernizing the public sector and enables cost-efficient decisions to be made based on well-documented information. In addition to improving efficiency, civic services and meeting public expectations, digitalization also makes it possible to develop policies faster through access to big data from more channels in real time.

• Digitalization of public services requires access to, and correct treatment of, data.
• For the digital transformation to succeed, an open mindset is required, as well as managers who continuously follow, and employees with the right analytical skillset who collaborate closely with the individual functional departments.
• The potential for change and areas of improvement must be identified, and in the areas where the impact will be greatest, the innovative solutions and new technologies must be strongly anchored in the practical application.
• Digitalization should be used to simplify processes and procedures to foster easy, fast and sensible service to all citizens.
• The public’s perceived improvements from digitalization should be harnessed to build and strengthen relationships with citizens and other stakeholders.
• To foster innovation, public institutions may consider supplementing their organization with an Innovation Hub that reports directly to top management and has the mandate to discuss solutions for complex challenges with the inclusion of subject matter experts from relevant public or private organizations.

SAS help turn healthcare data into decision support for healthcare systems

Healthcare systems face enormous challenges. With fewer resources, more treatments must be handled while quality must be improved simultaneously. Patient-centered care, patient dialog and inventive thinking are topics currently on the agenda. Better and more agile transitions, increased ambulatory-patient throughput and prevention are some of the areas where the public sector can utilize analytics to effect savings  .

Data-driven management can be a tool to achieve the political ambitions of realizing a patient-centered, value-based healthcare system. New connections across regions and municipalities, physicians, hospitals and community care, can be created by using anonymous patient data and sharing information and expertise.

Data is needed to transform and provide a balance between production, prevention and allowing more and better healthcare for the available resources. For instance, patient risk scoring data can be used to analyze patient risk profiles and determine if resources could be better spent on ambulatory or preventative care for chronically ill, high-risk patients.

There are enormous quantities of data in the Nordic countries—more than what is currently being used —and on which intelligent decision can be based. Typically, data is available, perhaps with some delay, but it is primarily used in a research or political context, rather than locally for decision-making or in a clinical setting.

Healthcare providers can benefit from using data far more proactively and to enable this, SAS collaborates with healthcare leaders to transform their organizations with the help of data insights. The systematic and proactive use of healthcare data is critical for the empowerment of healthcare providers to become value-based organizations.

Scaling & innovation in the public sector 

Quality can be improved in the public sector by developing and applying advanced analytical tools and methods, anchored in the political context. Successful innovative solutions should be able to become repeated fast and efficiently in other organizations and sectors, and good place to start is where the sectors border.

• The modern digital organization uses data and analytics to prioritize prevention before treatment.
  
  
• Advanced analysis of data can direct human resources to wherever they benefit the most.
  
  
• Digitalization, data and analytics can stimulate the necessary change. Here are examples of how SAS solutions have strengthened innovation in the public sector:
  –Healthcare: Fewer patients die from hospital-acquired infections.
  –Education: Institutions target programs for students who are at the most risk of dropping outSocial Services: housing communities with high crime rates, many discontented youths and major social problems use analytics to create safer neighborhoods.
  –Unemployment: The limited resources within unemployment benefit offices and municipalities are used more efficiently. Allocating resources where most needed, provides these institutions with the oversight to better support those who struggle the most with finding work again.

SAS helps leading public officials improve social services by turning data into knowledge.

There are good reasons to increase social mobility. Children benefit, as does society as a whole.

While the general standard of living and the quality of our safety net is high, too many vulnerable children lack opportunities for social mobility. Helping these children will not only reward them with a brighter future, it will have a long-term economic impact, as fewer children grow up unable to support themselves.

The worst cases involve abused children in families that fall through the social safety net. As soon as the problem is identified by schools or social workers, many families move on to another municipality. Here they may get a bit of breathing space, until someone becomes aware of the problem and the scenario repeats itself. Once the problem comes to the public’s attention, we learn that it is not new, but rather a pattern of behavior that has happened elsewhere before. The common explanation is that “it wasn't handled in time."

Today it is possible to ensure that once a problem like this becomes known, it will not repeat itself. It is also possible to take preventative measures and prioritize multidisciplinary interventions through coordinated action from different professionals and agencies. This will naturally require oversight and insight, which data analytics can help provide.

However, there is not enough hard data about what measures works for vulnerable children. In addition, no one knows how to prevent children from growing into adulthood dependent on welfare, or how children being raised by parents with substance abuse problems can avoid repeating the family tradition. Advanced data analysis would yield deeper and actionable insights that could help multiple agencies in their efforts.

There is plenty to be done, and when trying to comprehend an immense area such as social services, there are many issues to address.

The National Board of Social Services in Denmark has created a unified, comprehensive platform that gives a holistic view of multiple agencies. For instance, the Danish Prison & Probation Service used the shared platform and predictive analytics to forecast the economic consequences of different types of prison sentences.

Many areas remain unexplored. These include the administration of the overall economy, and not the least ways to reduce welfare fraud. Read more about Risk-based control here.

Efficiency in the public sector

The public sector needs to find new ways to improve service delivery performance. Big data, which is already available today, hold the keys to higher efficiency, fewer errors and less waste. When big data is analyzed, it enables governments to dedicate efforts in the right places and can reveal which efforts work, and which need adjustment. As such, new data-driven services can be prioritized according to the levels of satisfaction they generate among citizens.

The organization, infrastructure and financial administration needs to be adjusted to match the new reality, where well-documented decisions are based on knowledge from data[ analysis. And it is important that the derived productivity improvements from the new solutions are made transparent.

Analytics increase data insights and fact-based findings significantly, and makes it possible to target and administer efforts towards specific civic groups with the greatest impact – especially for society's weakest such as the chronically ill, vulnerable children, lonely elders and labor market outcasts.

SAS helps school administrators improve schools and education by turning data into knowledge.

Data is knowledge. Knowledge can make us smarter about which measures improve learning. 

In Denmark, a major education system reform has been implemented, including initiatives such as inclusion programs, homework cafés and increased exercise as part of the curriculum, to make pupils smarter. However, is the new reform producing the desired results and which of the initiatives has the biggest impact? SAS Institute wish to take part in answering these questions, and we can do just that, thanks to intelligent data-based tools.

In the same way, through student retention analytics, we can find the answers to out why 95% of our youth have difficulties completing a high school education, and why 60% face adversity continuing to university. Perhaps they lack the competences needed to choose and complete their education. Or maybe they are met with initiatives and intentions that do not match their needs for digitalization, changeability, openness and individual acknowledgement.

At SAS Institute, we are experts in turning resources into impact, and we accommodate visions and objectives by evaluating and acquire new knowledge based on data. For instance, SAS Institute has helped the University of Alabama minimize student dropout rates and use data to recruit and retain the best students. As a outcome, the university is now more successful in recruiting and retaining students, resulting in freed resources and higher student satisfaction.

Risk-based control and supervision in the public sector

By using data as the foundation for risk management and digital control, government agencies can identify, prioritize and follow-up, while ensuring control resources are deployed where most needed. Risk based control and supervision is an area, where the use of analytical models, based on multiple data sources, can help enable fast and cost-efficient reactions once irregularities are detected.

• Risk-based supervision is a particular logical area for implementation of advanced, data-driven analytics.
• Data-driven analytics can detect, predict and prevent cheating and fraud.
• Trust in the public administration grows when the majority of the citizens experience better service because relevant control systems are used to the optimal effect.
• Early detection of fraud and cheating improves the bottom-line from several aspects —from the citizens’ trust in the system to the perception of a fair fiscal management of the welfare model. Risk based control limit repeat violations and focuses on those that abuse the system, without burdening the administration with increased workload.

Analytical Solutions

The public sector needs to deliver more for less. This includes detecting more people who are abusing the system.

The expectations from the citizens to the social services are increasing, even though budgets can’t keep up. Unfortunately, a minority of the public is taking advantage of the system at the expense of others – either consciously or unconsciously. When that happens, not only does it undermine trust in public administration, but the structure of our society as a whole. 

Trust is good. Control is better. However, the problem with control is that it inconveniences the many to find the few fraudsters. The good news is that it is now possible to focus on the abusers and criminals when we let data speak for itself. 

As humans, we can use our intuition, experience and work even harder. However, that is not necessarily the most efficient approach. But when we systemize our human insights and combine them with risk management control systems and data analytics, we can achieve results quickly. That is the approach of SAS Institute.

Over decades, we have refined our analytical models to catch fraudsters from any angle. The starting point is the insights and intuition of experienced specialists. From there, the system automatically searches for numbers that deviates from the norm and combines these with predictive analysis to make solid data based forecasts. Then focus shifts back to the people again. However, this time, analytics and AI is used to detect suspicious networks, patterns and combinations that would otherwise take untold manpower hours to do manually.

The result is effective risk based control that not only support supervision but also detects fraud and abuse of public funds. This way, repeat offences is limited, and focus can stay on those that ruin things for others, without burdening administrators with an extra workload.

In the end, the majority of the citizens experience better service, and the trust in public administration grows.