The Good, the Bad, the Clunky: Improving the Use of Administrative Data for Research

Administrative data arising via the operation of public service delivery systems hold great benefits for citizens and society by enabling new research questions to be addressed, providing they can be made available in a safe, socially acceptable way. In recognition of this potential, the UK Administrative Data Research Network was established in 2013 to enable new research for public benefit. However, there are considerable challenges to be overcome for effective data use, and many of these are common to administrative data enterprises in general. Using this network as a practical case study, we set out to explore the issues and propose how to share the ‘good’, suggest solutions to the ‘bad’, and improve the ‘clunky’ issues, to lead to improvements in administrative data use.