The increased importance of data and its consequences have reached the social debate about the data-governance of the public sector. With recent data scandals in the Netherlands in municipalities,...Show moreThe increased importance of data and its consequences have reached the social debate about the data-governance of the public sector. With recent data scandals in the Netherlands in municipalities, the research sets out to discover why and how differences in data handling of municipalities are to be declared. This research focusses specifically on one government level in the Netherlands, its municipalities. An overall hierarchical data-readiness framework is made based on available data-readiness frameworks consisting of four characteristics; organisational alignment, organisational maturity, organisational capabilities and ethical considerations. The framework is applied by means of a survey and send to different Dutch municipalities. We find that the frameworks hierarchy works and that with the framework the differences between the municipalities become more apparentShow less