The recent case of a disabled four year-old girl who was
abused by her parents, despite no fewer than 20 visits or contacts
made by social services and a string of health professionals, has
once again increased the pressure for greater data sharing between
the NHS, local authorities, and the police.
At the same time, government ministers unveiled sweeping
legislation in the form of the
Serious Crime Bill, which contains measures to allow widespread
data sharing between public and private sectors for the first
time.
In theory, the proposed legislation would allow public and
private sector anti-fraud agencies to access personal financial
information, including pay, tax, pension and benefit records held
across the public sector.
It follows a decision by a cabinet committee to overturn the
principle that personal information provided to a government
department for one purpose should, in general, not be used for
another. The existing data sharing policy meant that public bodies
and departments had to provide a legal justification when they
wanted to share data about individuals, specifying the purpose.
Now, the policy has been turned on its head. Instead, government
officials will be able to assume that data can be shared unless
there are reasons not to disclose it.
The government is already attempting to paint the policy as a
citizen-friendly move. For example, when a family moves home, they
could register the new address online with their local authority,
which would then update the records of the local authority.
In turn, the information would be passed on to the Driver and
Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and Inland Revenue for tax
purposes, and the electoral register.
Yet senior figures within the IT industry and public sector
believe the government still has a long way to go to achieve its
information sharing goal. One senior figure who has worked closely
with government departments to deliver information processing on
key projects, described a "vision statement" put out by the
Department of Constitutional Affairs late last year as, "Great
rhetoric, but pie in the sky."
The Department for Constitutional Affairs had outlined a vision
where, "information will be shared to expand opportunities for the
most disadvantaged, fight crime and provide better public services
for citizens and business".
It added that it would work with the Information Commissioner's
Office (ICO) to encourage use of codes of practice to ensure
personal information is kept safe and secure, and complies with the
Data Protection Act.
In response, the ICO issued a cautionary note on greater
information sharing. "It is important to strike a balance between
the need to share information as part of delivering efficient
public services and the need to ensure privacy and the integrity of
personal information.
"There must be clarity of purpose and some limits to sharing -
information must not be shared just because the technology allows
it. It is essential that information is only shared to the extent
that it is necessary and reasonable to do so and that strong
safeguards are put in place that work in practice, not just in
theory.
"We all want to see information used to provide high quality and
efficient public services, but public trust and confidence may well
be jeopardised with any wholesale or unrestrained sharing of
personal information."
Indeed, to focus on the implications of information sharing more
closely, the ICO recently appointed one of its long-term staffers,
Iain Bourne, to a new position as head of information sharing.
At the heart of the problem of information sharing is that most
of the data within government is contained in "silos", in other
words within separate departments, whose mindset is not to share
with other departments, because they don't see it as a core
responsibility of the department.
"I came across a situation where one government department was
asked to supply some information regarding an application for a Job
Seeker's Allowance," says David Piggott, managing director of
healthcare IT specialist Integrity Consulting Partners.
"It refused, saying it was not central to the mission of the
department. How can you talk about information sharing in
government when that sort of mindset exists?" Piggott insists more
can be done to prevent tragic social services cases.
In the landmark Victoria Climbie case, a failure to share data
between four London boroughs, two hospitals, two police child
protection teams and the National Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children contributed to the tragedy.
In Piggott's experience, "Usually the social worker ends up in
court when a case comes to light. There clearly must be shared
information on case histories between the social worker and other
GPs or health workers, teachers or others involved."
Piggott believes the government's Connecting for Health scheme
could make a difference to local authorities which are seeking to
connect to N3, the replacement network for NHSnet as part of the
NHS National Programme for IT.
"The one-off fee to local authorities for connecting to N3 is
around £100,000. What Connecting for Health should do is give
subsidised N3 connections to local authorities, and get police
connected to N3 as a node on the network as well."
Rod Aldridge, founder of outsourcing group Capita, who now runs
his own foundation focusing on public service reform, says before
government can focus on delivering shared information, it should
make a success of shared services first.
"The case for shared services has long been argued and
documented in numerous government reports. However, on the ground
little progress has been achieved, and back office inefficiencies
have largely been ignored.
"The Local Government White Paper promoted shared services as a
core element in achieving potential savings of £40 billion over 10
years from sharing HR & IT alone - and that is before
addressing council tax, business rates and housing benefit where
over 400 local authorities still have their own ICT infrastructure,
staff and call centres to administer what is a transactional
service.
"Shared services are not simply about aggregation but also
require standardisation, process re-engineering and consolidation
to deliver modern, efficient services for the customer. It is
difficult to imagine councils getting together to centralise the
running of these services into four or five national centres. What
is needed is a framework of inc entives from government encouraging
authorities to share, with clarity given over retained savings and
pump priming to fund set up costs."
There have been some examples of success stories where data
sharing takes place to deliver a service as a partnership between
the public and private sectors, such as Voca's processing of civil
service payments and pensions, or in local government, where
several innovative schemes are currently in place.
One, at Hampshire County Council, facilitates information
sharing through a secure IT network across the county,
incorporating unitary authorities, town and parish councils, fire
and emergency services, and child protection services and
stakeholders.
The information sharing evolved out of Hampshire's eGovernment
work, and Hampshire's CIO Jos Crease believes the sharing could go
further, culminating in an integrated contact centre covering the
county, with the ability to put citizens in direct touch with the
necessary council services.
"When it comes to information sharing, I don't think anyone
believes this can be done by some vast national website hosted by
central government. It is going to have to be delivered in a local
form," he says.
Philip Virgo, secretary general of Eurim, says when it comes to
greater future information sharing in government, some key
principles will have to be addressed.
"For information sharing, the big issue is, "What is the legal
framework for governance and accountability?"
"Government already has too many governance regimes, although
no-one knows what they are. They all have different routines.
Ultimately, information sharing must be seen in the context of the
application - the Home Office, Department of Work and Pensions, for
example - and not the DCA's 'vision statement'."
A Eurim working group currently involving lawyers from engineers
WS Atkins and international law group Bird & Bird among others,
is planning to deliver a report on the characteristics of data
sharing protocols commanding professional (both application area
and information systems) and public support.
The group will also look at a publicly scrutinised and
recognised set of application-specific best practices for data
sharing that can be used as models for future local and central
government data sharing initiatives to build on.
Piggott suggests what might be required are charters, detailing
good and bad information sharing.
"In reality, information sharing is an awfully long way off.
Even in the NHS, it might be a great idea to say that patient data
and medical records can he shared. But that only works if you're
taken ill in England, not in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland."
Nick Kalisperas, director at IT trade association Intellect,
believes the public sector must learn from the private sector,
especially the financial sector when it comes to guaranteeing trust
and confidence in the data being shared.
And he worries that there is still too much of a "silo"
mentality within government departments, with no clear strategy for
sharing information.
"You can't say the current system is 'joined up'. There is too
much duplication of data, and we have to look at better management
and filtering to eliminate that duplication. Departments can't
share in an ad hoc structure there has to be an overarching
information sharing strategy to deliver improved services that are
beneficial to the citizen."
"The challenge is how do you deliver it? Will it get there? Yes,
but it might take 10 years."
Government targets data sharing
IT staff in 'data integration mire'
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