Data governance in Australia

We are delighted to share with you the Governance Institute of Australia’s key thought leadership project for 2023 — Data governance in Australia. This report forms the fifth in the Governance Institute’s digital thought leadership series.

This project also heralds the commencement of key strategic partnerships for with Governance Institute with Macquarie University’s DataX Research Centre and the CSIRO’s National AI Centre. The purpose of these collaborations is to enable our members to address some of the major challenges and risks technological advancements are having on organisations.

Data is an increasingly valuable asset. It is critical that organisations design, introduce and implement an effective data governance framework to maximise customer service and commercial value of data while also minimising risk particularly reputational risk.

In this year’s survey, the Governance Institute asked its members to examine how organisations are making appropriate decisions about their data. The results have revealed a number of important insights into the challenges of keeping pace with technological advances, reporting to the board, protecting assets and maintaining the trust of stakeholders.

In relation to the role of boards, while we have seen a small rise in the number of board directors with experience in the technology sector, it’s clear that there are very differing opinions as to the most effective board structures to best navigate data governance. The most commonly cited structure is to include it as part of the existing audit and/or risk committee, but fewer than half of the respondents selected that option. Twenty-three per cent think should be elevated to the board level, 12 per cent as part of a separate risk committee and 10 per cent recent as part of a separate technology committee.