Modern Cloud Approach to Data for Government Entities: Opens the Door for Data Sharing Between Departments for Greater Public Value

By Julian Wise, Principal Technologist, LAB³ 

Introduction  

Across New Zealand and Australia local councils and government departments are increasingly adopting shared IT services and collaborative operating models. They are also rethinking how data supports public value. But the challenge is – how to manage data across teams and between organisations in a safe and secure way, without exposing private data. 

For public sector leaders, now is the time to reimagine how data supports collaboration, transparency and service excellence.

At LAB³ we see this evolution as a critical step toward smarter, more connected government, built on data that is shared with purpose and governed with confidence. 

Background 

For decades, councils and government departments have invested heavily in on-premises infrastructure, designed primarily to keep systems running reliably. Today, that focus is shifting. Not only are these organisations moving to cloud, but Data itself has also emerged as the next major capability to modernise.  

The movement from on-premises platforms to cloud data services such as Microsoft Fabric reflects this broader change in thinking to enable the latest tools for AI, data governance and a permissioned self-service user governance process. 

Starting Point: On-Premises Infrastructure Not Geared for Sharing Data 

When it comes to sharing identified data, for example, planning, environmental management, service optimisation, and regulatory transparency, these all rely on timely, trusted, and accessible information.

Traditional on-premises environments, tightly coupled to individual organisations, struggle to support these outcomes at scale, often due to data segmentation.

This is particularly evident in regions where multiple councils or agencies must collaborate, each with their own mandates, systems and risk profiles. 

Introducing The Move from On-Premises to Microsoft Fabric 

Shared IT services are already common across local government. Infrastructure, identity, and productivity tooling are often delivered centrally to reduce duplication and cost. Data has often had a slower process to grow. As councils and departments consolidate infrastructure, the natural next step is to consolidate and govern data in ways that still respect organisational boundaries. Microsoft Fabric has gained traction in this context because it brings analytics, integration, engineering and AI together as a single, cloud native platform.  

One of the most immediate benefits in moving from on-premises to Microsoft Fabric is the reduction in operational overhead.

On-premises data platforms require continual patching, hardware refreshes, storage planning and security maintenance. These activities are essential, but they do not directly advance policy or service outcomes. By adopting Fabric as a SaaS platform, governments transfer much of this responsibility to Microsoft, gaining builtin resilience, high availability and automatic updates. This shift frees internal teams to focus on report generation and the strategic use of business analytics. 

The transition is not only about efficiency. It is also about enabling modern user and data governance. Fabric supports permissioned, selfservice access to data across the organisation. Analysts, planners, and business users can work with trusted datasets directly, without relying on manual extracts or bespoke pipelines. At the same time, central data teams retain full visibility over lineage, usage and access patterns. This level of governance is critical in publicsector environments where privacy, compliance and data sovereignty requirements are nonnegotiable. 

Under the Microscope: The Scenario of a Department Managing Resources 

The value of moving to the Fabric approach becomes clear in collaborative scenarios. Consider a state government forestry corporation responsible for managing land, environmental data and commercial activities.  

Such an organisation often works with internal teams, contractors and external vendors, all of whom require access to shared datasets. Licensing data, usage approvals and monitoring outputs must be tightly controlled.  

In an on-premises model, this type of scenario frequently results in duplicated systems and fragile data sharing mechanisms. However, on Fabric, a single governed data estate can support multiple user groups, each granted access appropriate to their role, significantly reducing risk while improving operational efficiency.  

It’s no wonder that as legacy data platforms expire, there is a growing motivation for councils and departments to be on the cloud, and for teams to be connected for the latest tools from Microsoft. 

Another Scenario: Where Portfolios Have Multiple Entities 

Similarly, many government portfolios consist of multiple subsidiaries or semi-independent entities, each producing and consuming data upstream and downstream. Corporate reporting, regulatory compliance and operational analytics depend on a common understanding of key metrics. 

Fabric enables organisations to operate on a shared platform, standardising core datasets while still allowing individual entities to retain autonomy and govern their users with correct permissions. This approach supports consistency without imposing unnecessary uniformity. 

Migration paths to Fabric require a planned approach to be delivered successfully. Some datasets are candidates for full migration, particularly where legacy platforms are nearing end of life. Others benefit from realtime mirroring or selective ingestion, allowing insights to be generated in the cloud while source systems remain onprem. Fabric accommodates this spectrum, enabling governments to modernise incrementally and align investment with business priorities. 

The Pathway Opens for Data, AI Agents, and Regular Windows Tools 

Looking forward, the role of data platforms expands into regular windows tools. Business data can be connected to co-pilot and Office 365 to be accessible within Windows tools.  

Agentic operations, where AI agents assist staff by answering questions, surfacing insights or triggering workflows, are becoming tangible use cases. Fabric provides the foundations for this by combining governed data with AI capabilities.

Staff can interact with organisational data using natural language, while security and permissions remain enforced. These interactions are observable and auditable, allowing leaders to maintain confidence in how data is being accessed and interpreted.  

Another important consideration is integration into broader cloud workflows. Modern government services increasingly rely on automation, event-driven processes and cross-system integration.  

Fabric allows data to flow into these workflows in a controlled and permissioned manner, supporting scenarios such as regional planning, shared reporting dashboards and crosscouncil initiatives. This is especially valuable where councils operate under shared IT service models but still need to collaborate on regional outcomes. 

The Future is Here: Data as a Capability to Support Collective Decision Making 

The trend toward shared data platforms reflects a deeper cultural shift.

Governments are recognising that data is not an asset owned by a single system or team, but a capability that supports collective decision making.  

As councils and departments collaborate more closely and as service delivery crosses organisational boundaries, platforms like Microsoft Fabric provide a way to scale insight while maintaining trust. 

The move from server rooms to cloudbased data platforms is ultimately about foundation building. Fabric allows governments to focus on outcomes rather than upkeep. This is done to reduce the burden of infrastructure management and enabling modern platform governance.  

For public sector leaders, the opportunity is to use the transition to reimagine how data supports collaboration, transparency and service excellence. At LAB³ we see this evolution as a critical step toward smarter, more connected government, built on data that is shared with purpose and governed with confidence. 

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