Public sector delivery is often data rich, but struggles to efficiently use that data in monitoring, appraisal or evaluation. Some of the barriers are institutional, restricting linking data across different aspects of delivery. Some barriers are capability, just not having the infrastructure or skills. Our data labs work focuses on overcoming the barriers to use data. We have worked on a number of public policy data labs; all providing a setting where multiple datasets are brought together to analyse policy. The work has included the governance of secure data access.