The availability of public sector data has increased tremendously in the recent past and all levels of government have begun to find ways to take advantage of what is collected in public information systems to assist in the decisions that are made at all levels of government. This new availability offers a potential source of big data for social scientists, although few have taken advantage of it yet. This presentation will discuss the technical, legal, as well as political challenges is accessing and analyzing these data and why many academics have avoided using such data even though a great deal has been available for over two decades. Data quality is certainly one reason for this reluctance. A study of the provision of high-cost services to families served by the state will be presented and the computational challenges of this will be a primary focus of the presentation.