Topic hub
Data and Analytics in Government
Data platforms, governance, GIS, reporting, open data, and the privacy rules that shape all of it.
Agencies collect enormous amounts of operational data and struggle to answer straightforward questions with it, because the data sits in systems that were never meant to talk to each other and because departments define the same measure differently. The technical work is real but secondary. Agreed definitions, an owner for each dataset, and privacy rules decided before the architecture are what separate reporting that gets used from reporting that gets abandoned.
These pages cover platform choices, governance that fits an agency rather than an enterprise, geospatial data as the connective tissue of local government, publishing data to the public responsibly, and the confidentiality regimes that constrain what can be combined.
HQT capabilities in this area
- Data & AnalyticsData platforms, reporting, GIS, open data, and machine learning aligned to public-sector AI guidance.
Services
- Open Data & Transparency Portals
- Data Platforms & Warehousing
- Data Governance & Quality
- GIS & Spatial Analytics
- Responsible AI Policy & Governance
- Dashboards & Reporting
- Public Safety Data & Analytics
- Machine Learning & AI
- Records & Public Records Support
- CAD & RMS Integration
- APIs & Systems Integration
- Zero Trust Architecture
Solutions by agency type
- Cybersecurity for County GovernmentsSecurity programs spanning health, human services, justice, elections, and public works, each with its own regulatory obligations.
- Cybersecurity for Water, Power, and Public UtilitiesSegmenting and defending control systems and the business systems that surround them.
- Software Development for County GovernmentsModernizing case management, integrating departmental systems, and building the tools commercial platforms leave out.
- Cloud and Enterprise IT for County GovernmentsConsolidating departmental infrastructure and running enterprise services across dozens of independent departments.
- Data and Analytics for County GovernmentsCross-departmental reporting, outcome measurement, and data sharing that respects confidentiality rules.
- Data and Analytics for Cities and TownsCouncil reporting, open data, and operational dashboards built on definitions everyone agrees with.
- Data and Analytics for Water, Power, and UtilitiesTurning meter, sensor, and asset data into leak detection, condition assessment, and rate support.
- Data and Analytics for Public SafetyOperational reporting, state mandates, and public transparency built from dispatch and records data.
- Public Safety and Justice Software for CountiesIntegration across sheriff, probation, jail, courts, and prosecutors, and the reporting that spans them.
- Data and Analytics for School Districts and CollegesStudent data warehouses, state reporting, and early warning analytics with privacy built in.
Reference articles
- Buying aerial imagery, lidar, and change detection servicesHow agencies scope aerial imagery and lidar buys: accuracy specs, flight timing, licensing, hosting, and acceptance testing.
- Data catalogs and data inventories: making agency data findableHow agencies separate a technical data catalog from a statutory data inventory, what a minimum entry in each contains, and who keeps them current.
- Storing sensor time series: retention, downsampling, and rollupsHow agencies set retention windows, downsample sensor and meter readings into rollups, and choose a time series store.
- Open311 and standards-based interfaces for service requestsHow Open311 GeoReport v2 works, what its endpoints do, and how to require it in a service request system solicitation.
- What to specify when you buy a 311 or service request systemRequirements, scenario demos, reference questions, and late-surfacing cost lines to use when buying a 311 or service request system.
- Dashboard governance: owners, certification tiers, and retirementHow agencies separate certified dashboards staff may cite from exploratory ones using owners, definitions, reviews, and retirement.
- Predictive maintenance for agency fleets, facilities, and equipmentWhat data predictive maintenance really requires, how to test it against a tightened PM schedule, and how to turn predictions into work orders.
- Data warehouses, lakes, and lakehouses for agenciesThe main data platform architectures, what each is good for, and a sensible default for a public agency.
- Real-time data: streaming and IoT platforms for cities and utilitiesHow agencies collect and act on data from sensors, meters, vehicles, and signals as it happens.
- Digital twins for utilities and public infrastructureWhat a digital twin is in practical terms, and where the concept delivers value for water, power, and facilities.
- Geospatial metadata and data standards for agency GISHow agency GIS teams document coordinate systems, schemas, and metadata so shared layers can actually be trusted
- Benchmarking your agency against other jurisdictionsHow to choose peer jurisdictions, normalize the numbers, and document definitions so a comparison holds up in public.
- Fire and EMS records reporting: NFIRS, NERIS, and NEMSISHow fire incident reporting and EMS patient care records work: NFIRS, NERIS, NEMSIS, CAD times, and outcome exchange.
- Water and wastewater compliance reporting and operations dataHow water and wastewater utilities move data from SCADA and the lab to regulators, and what to require of the systems in between.
- Fault detection and diagnostics: turning building automation data into work ordersHow fault detection and diagnostics software turns building automation trend data into work orders, and what it takes to act on them.
- Street light inventories and networked controls before an LED retrofitHow agencies confirm street light ownership, tariffs, and GIS inventory before buying LED fixtures and networked controls.
- Groundwater monitoring data and SGMA annual reportingWhat data a groundwater sustainability agency must maintain, from well records to extraction, and how the annual state report is built from it.
- Impact analysis before you change a field, report, or source systemHow agencies can find every report, extract, dashboard, and submission that depends on a field before changing it.
- A data literacy program for agency staff: scope and curriculumHow to scope, teach, tier, and evaluate an internal data literacy program so agency staff can interpret the reports they already receive.
- Public safety data transparency: reporting that informs without exposingThe state mandates and community expectations for public safety data, and how to publish it responsibly.
- A modern data stack for agency reportingThe components that have replaced nightly exports and spreadsheets, and how they fit together for a public agency.
- Run your own security operations or buy monitoring as a serviceFour models for continuous security monitoring, what each asks of staff and contracts, and how response decisions stay with the agency.
From the blog
- Lessons from building a streaming pipeline for sensor data
- Open data as a public records strategy
- Address data is the hardest data a local government owns
- How a council member reads your IT budget request
- A digital twin starts with the GIS, not the platform
- A project is not finished until the agency can run it without the vendor
- An acceptable use policy for generative AI should govern data, not tools
- Retrieval quality, not the model, decides whether an AI assistant is useful
- Why dashboards go unused, and what to do about it
- Low-code or custom code? A decision guide for agencies
- GIS data quality becomes a life-safety issue under NG911
- Cloud cost surprises and public budgets do not mix
- API-first integration for agencies that own a dozen vendor systems
- Five terms we think every agency AI contract should include