Data analysis is part of a better feedback loop for local government

This Commentary addresses how local government in South Africa should organise its decision-making processes to best serve their residents.We illustrate and discuss how system analysis can be applied to local government decision-making in the South African context, in the vein of calls for "evidence-based decision making".It also proposes how data analytic work may be incorporated into the local government system, both conceptually, as well as in practical terms, through organisational and cultural interventions.Throughout South African society and beyond, it is widely accepted that local government is both critical to the delivery of basic services, and the site of some of the most significant failures thereof.There are many astute analyses of this in both the popular and academic press, and we do not feel that we have much to add to these diagnoses.What we believe we can offer is something of a remedy.Our suggestion does not necessarily directly address the reasons for service delivery failure, but rather, in our experience, provides the platforms or fora for doing so.We argue that a relatively minor change in how we organise the work of local government, namely the introduction of analytic feedback processes, could have a transformative effect.We provide background on the relevant systems theory before expanding on two of the modes of feedback that we have observed in local government.Finally, we make some practical suggestions on how this could be realised.