We’re all “data-driven” these days, and not just in our business lives.

We use apps to count our daily steps and calculate the best route for beating the traffic. We choose films to watch with the family on a Saturday night using aggregated review ratings. And any self-respecting 12-year-old football fan can reel off endless stats on which Premiership player runs furthest in a match and who converts most goal-scoring chances.

In so many aspects of our lives, data really is in the driving seat. Yet when it comes to some of the biggest questions affecting the country, it can be conspicuously absent.

For example, as we told the Scottish Covid Inquiry when we gave evidence back before Christmas, the lack of reliable local economic and business data was at the root of many of the difficulties around how the government response was managed. Not being able to target help at specific types of business affected by particular aspects of the pandemic ultimately led to the launch of nearly 180 different Scottish support funds, not to mention a raft of anomalies, as officials sought to plug gaps left by older schemes based on imperfect proxies, such as the non-domestic rates valuation roll.

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