I work for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), which aims to help New Zealanders safe, strong and independent.
My official role is as a graduate analyst, though I often work with data engineers as I am part of the data warehouse team. I am part of the Data Management and Information Systems team, which develops and maintains the Ministry's data information systems. Working here involves maintaining the data warehouse and keeping the information in it up to date, creating reports for internal and inter-agency use, and providing data access. A typical day for my role might involve coding, meetings, liaising with clients and creating technical or explanatory documentation.
The most important aspect for me is that the data warehouse collects information from many sources. It then provides useful information for MSD’s providers, researchers and policymakers.
I grew up in Wellington. After high school I went to Auckland to study philosophy and maths, however, after I took a statistics course I quickly changed from maths to statistics. In my first statistics course, the whole class was asked to fill in a survey, when the anonymised results were available I searched for relationships in real-world data and fell in love with statistics. Soon after this, a presentation by the treasury made me realise the true value of analysing data and my heart was set on working for the government.
I completed my conjoint BSc(honours)/Ba majoring in statistics and philosophy. Then, despite not planning to continue studying, I came across an opportunity to work on a project too interesting to ignore and planned a return for a research master’s in 2021. Before returning to master’s, I was part of an internship with the Analytics Research in Government programme. Given my answers to interview questions, I was placed with Oranga Tamariki, where I produced a report on aspects of the intake process. I really enjoyed the working atmosphere, the people there were all helpful and dedicated to their mission to keep improving support for New Zealand’s Tamariki. In 2021 I started to work on the ‘Going Straight Home?’ research project, investigating stable housing’s possible effect on recidivism of ex-prisoners.
During my master’s I heard Analytics Research in Government had started a graduate programme and applied. I was placed with MSD where I am now.
Yes! People with heavy coding experience may come to mind for a data warehouse but in actuality, a larger range of backgrounds are desired. People who come to work here need to have varied experiences. Some are needed to interact with others inside and outside the Ministry in order to coordinate work that needs doing; others work to describe the information we have or create technical documents; still more do the coding you may expect to be prevalent in a data warehouse. Even within each task a range of different viewpoints make for the best thought out solutions.
My job could be done by a broad range of backgrounds if they were willing to learn.
Everyone I have met at MSD so far has been so open to sharing their knowledge and supporting others. Everyone is focused on helping New Zealanders through their work. There is recognition of everyone’s work, as well as how the team and, by extension, the organisation work together to make positive change. It adds boundless learning opportunities and creates a great working environment.
In an organisation with data such as MSD has, on the scale it has, there must be many safeguards in place to make sure it is protected and used correctly. This can mean that large scale idea, although well-received, face lengthy planning and investigation phases. These phases are necessary and important to ascertain the viability of the plan and how best to carry it out. However, it can be a slow process to implement changes.