Cross-Chain Information Management Enabled by Den Bosch Datamanagement Platform

Data City Den Bosch

Den Bosch Datastad is the flagship program of the Municipality ‘s-Hertogenbosch, designed to realize the city’s ambitions in data-driven working and digitalization. To support this, the city chose in 2022 to implement a standardized Data Management Platform and to collaborate with Scamander, now part of Enable U. The municipality’s IT department recognized that success required not just tools and technology, but also experience and expertise to embed this new way of working. With the Datamanagement Platform, data is collected, processed, managed, analyzed, shared, and—when necessary or desired—securely destroyed in a reliable and efficient way. This makes the data easier to use for informed decision-making and integrated policy development. This does not just benefit the municipality and its internal domains, but also supports external partners such as water authorities, healthcare providers, educational institutions, housing associations, and public safety agencies.

Municipality-wide Datamanagement Platform

Implementing a municipality-wide Datamanagement Platform, based on state-of-the-art Azure technology, was a first-of-its-kind initiative. Data from the physical domain, social domain source systems, and data from service delivery and operations all come together on this platform. To accelerate the delivery of consistent data, Delft developed the Municipal Data Model (GGM). This model allows for the abstraction of source data, eliminating dependency on specific sources for generating insights.

When asked about the biggest challenge during the two-year implementation, Mathieu Rutten, CIO and Head of IT for the Municipality of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, explained: “The biggest challenge was the lack of knowledge and experience within our team. By taking small steps, guided by Scamander’s specialists, we were able to bring much more structure to the project. Things like defining roles and standard processes for requesting and adding data to the new platform may seem simple, but they formed the solid foundation we needed. I would recommend every municipality to work with the right partner—otherwise, you risk falling into the same pitfalls due to narrow perspectives.”.

‘s-Hertogenbosch chose to partner with Scamander because organizational change plays a critical role. This includes improving data literacy and implementing Data Governance and Datamanagement. Scamander also provides a standardized solution: the Scamander Datamanagement Platform. This way, the right data can be accessed quickly and easily, to support decisions and policy-making. The platform also helps monitor the effectiveness of the policies. It not only supports the municipality and its internal domains, but also its ecosystem of partners, such as water authorities, healthcare institutions, educational institutions (at all levels: vocational, applied sciences, and university), housing associations, and the public safety sector. This enables an integrated view of the challenges the municipality faces. The city is also working on publishing open data in compliance with legal and security standards, enabling innovation both for and with its partners.

Mathieu Rutten: “Early on in the project, we were concerned about whether we would get the necessary support from our own organization. But by now, everyone understands that many of the issues around data come from siloed structures. Data is literally locked away in applications, departments, or external sources. Now that we can connect these data sets, we hardly ever need to convince anyone of the value of our project anymore.”

With the Datamanagement Platform, data is reliably and efficiently collected, processed, managed, analyzed, shared, and, where appropriate, destroyed—guided by a clear ethical framework that ensures privacy, transparency, and purpose limitation. The data is transformed into actionable insights that support the daily operations of the municipality and its partners—for example, enabling better decision-making and more efficient allocation of resources in social care.

When asked “What are you most proud of?” Mathieu Rutten answered; “Our own team. They truly understand what data-driven working means and know how to support it like no one else. They have become more demanding too—if a request is not backed by a design, a business analysis, and a mock-up, it simply will not be accepted. That may be a bit tough sometimes, but it has become clear that this approach allows us to handle requests much more efficiently. And in the end, that is what it is all about, right?”.