Erecting the Public Sector Information Exchange

Efficient interagency information sharing is critical to the execution of functions in the transparent state, and yet agencies persistently fail to share information. In the United States, members of the Hurricane Katrina (29 August 2005) investigation committee wrote that the American government remains the largest purchaser of information technology (IT) in the world and yet is ‘woefully incapable of storing, moving and accessing information’ (US Congress, Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, 2006, p. 1). In Australia, a Board of Inquiry determined that government agencies’ refusal to share data contributed to the death of Northern Territory infants through starvation (Bamblett et al., 2010). In Britain, several agencies’ failure to share information contributed to the death of several children at the hands of their guardians (The Bichard Inquiry, 2004). Why do government agencies fail to share information with each other and how can we incentivize public sector institutions to share information more effectively?