On April 21, 2021, the State Chancellery of Latvia in cooperation with the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Latvia and the Danish Embassy in Latvia organized a webinar for executive leaders about how to handle data in the administrations' processes. Adam Arndt, the lead architect of the Basic Data Programme in Denmark, presented the development of their data registers and how to develop a successful data foundation on which all public administrations should be built on.
Adam Arndt described the foundation on which all public administrations should be built on. They should be an open, up to date, data resource. To be able to have accurate data the state needs the public sector’s trust and accurate reporting. This enables the government and other organisations to provide for more accurate statistics and better services to the public.
The correct way of using data is not to limit it. Publish data as it is, don’t clean it and limit it. Do not put resources on datasets that aren’t requested, ask the people who use it what they require. There is so much data that is gathered every day that it is inefficient to try to use it all. Quoting Mr Arndt “Do things as they come, you get far with little. And if you do not do at least one mistake a day, you do not do enough."
