Intelligent processing of data is essential for addressing societal challenges. Data could be used to enhance the sustainability of national health care systems and to tackle environmental problems by, for example, processing energy consumption patterns to improve energy efficiency or of pollution data in traffic management. 

To make the best use of big data now and in the future, government must have the right infrastructure in place. It advocates a data force, based on the successful nudge unit, to access data from different departments and identify where savings could be made. New data science skills will be needed across government, but it is more important is ensuring that public services leaders are confident in combining big data with sound judgment.

Closely linked to government's drive to make better use of big data, is its drive to make data open. Open data, particularly that in the public sector, is often big data – for example, the census, information about healthcare or the weather – and making large government datasets open to the public drives innovation from within government and outside. See more at: http://fcw.com/Articles/2013/09/25/big-data-transform-government.aspx?Page=1