Tag: Public Sector

An opportunity to put address data higher on the UK agenda

2026-02-21 / peterkwells / 0 Comments

The UK Government’s National Data Library team is running a survey to understand the opportunities for responsibly increasing access to data held by the public sector. It closes on Saturday February 28th.

If you care about increasing access to UK address data, or geospatial data more broadly, then this is an opportunity to let the UK government know.

If you focus on the key questions – numbers 12-14 – about existing public sector data that is hard to access then it should only take 5-10 minutes.

If you’re not sure about why this is important then some reasons follow.

If you already know how you want to respond then simply skip directly to this post some tips on how to respond and see the responses I sent in.

Address data is incredibly valuable but too difficult to access

In the UK addresses – for example, “29 Acacia Road, Beanotown” – are maintained by local authorities. The list of address changes as flats, houses and offices get developed and demolished. These local lists are collected into a national dataset and made accessible to other public and private sector organisations.

While this happens address data gets tangled up in a complex web of other organisations who end up holding some intellectual property rights in the data, particularly the Royal Mail and the Ordnance Survey.

The Royal Mail is a business and the Ordnance Survey is a business owned by the government. Because they are businesses their primary goal has become to generate revenue for themselves by selling the data, rather than maximising the public good that could be created from using the data.

As a result the UK’s address data has become expensive, hard to access, not always accurate, and hard to correct.

This reduces the value that can be created from address data.

In practical terms that reduced value results in worse services. For example more occasions when people struggle to get home insurance, register with a doctor, or apply for a benefit because their address is not recognised by the computers.

At a more societal level it means it’s just that bit harder for businesses to get started or public services to be built. People spend time and effort buying data licences and then paying lawyers to help interpret those licences, when that time could instead be spent building better services for us to use.

So, as well as the poorer services that some people experience, there are other services that simply do not exist because businesses and public service organisations could not build them.

Put together that means lost services, businesses, and jobs.

As a practical example, recently the Ordnance Survey, a company owned by the government, paid their lawyers to contact at least 34 local authorities to ask them to check if they had released a list of addresses in error. Whoever is in the right on the legality of each data release, it’s clearly more public money not being spent on providing public services.

And this is just address data. Imagine the potential if the UK made all of its geospatial institutions and data fit for the future.

Overall the issues add up to big financial numbers and the UK is increasingly becoming an outlier as other countries make this kind of foundational data openly available for free. The EU has estimated that by 2028, its own plans for the wider availability of geospatial data – including addresses and maps – will generate up to €2 billion per year in economic growth.

So poorer services and weaker growth. Sounds like the UK is missing out by not making its own geospatial data more accessible.

Is it worth responding?

Over the years many people, such as Tim Berners-Lee, have asked and Prime Ministers, like Gordon Brown or Theresa May’s Conservative manifesto in 2019, have promised that addresses and other geospatial data will be made more available. Before it was elected the current government was very interested too.

Unfortunately despite the public promises successive governments have failed to deliver change.

Recently the current UK Government even appeared to confirm that the civil service had made no assessment of the potential benefits. Which was surprising. It makes you wonder what people have been doing all of these years.

So will responding to this latest survey change anything?

Honestly, it’s impossible to tell. All most people can do is continue to request and provide evidence of the potential benefits.

If the government, or its civil servants who work on data policy, believe the benefits are not significant then at least this might encourage them to provide their own evidence for public debate or run some experiments that could help the UK learn how to make data more accessible.

After all, addresses and geospatial data are relatively easy to make more available. The potential issues are well understood. The real challenge is modernising government institutions, and that’s a challenge that the current government has said it is willing to take on.

So, let’s ask them to try.

Read on to find out how to respond to the survey and ask for better access to address data.

Eight categories for how DWP uses data

2024-11-28 / peterkwells / 0 Comments

Yesterday I was skimming the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) latest whitepaper, called “Get Britain Working”, to see how they planned to use technology to help them deliver the policies and public services in it.

In doing so I was struck, not for the first time, by the wide number of ways in which the words ‘digital’ and ‘data’ are used across the public sector. As an experiment I thought I’d try to categorise them. This post is about ‘data‘, I might publish a similar post about ‘digital‘.

The categories in this whitepaper will be far, far, away from a complete list and all categorisations are loaded in some way, but some light grouping came up with eight categories that were interesting to me:

data as an input to and output of scientific research
data as an input to and output of a tool or public service
data produced as an official statistic
data produced for policy development
data produced for service planning
data to describe a type of computer system
data as something that needs governance and could be used for many purposes
data as an enabler of unspecified other things

The current UK government, like all the previous governments, plans to make more use of data and technology. There are initiatives like the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the DSIT digital centre, and the National Data Library.

It’s interesting to consider which of these categories of data uses the UK has the capability to do repeatedly to a decent standard, and which are the ones where more work might be required.

Data as an input to and output of scientific research

There was one case of data being an output from a scientific research study. Data will be an input to this study too. There are a range of legal, ethical and professional frameworks guiding scientific research.

Research is one of the purposes that the National Data Library is meant to support .The current text of the Data Use and Access bill includes a change to the legal definition of research. The change broadens the definition of research beyond scientific research in the public interest.

“a place-based real-world evidence study … aims to evaluate the effectiveness of tirzepatide on obesity and its impact on obesity-related conditions in a real-world setting… As well as data on patient outcomes, such as a reduction in rates or even reversal of conditions such as diabetes, CVD and poor mental health, the study will also …”

Data as an input to and output of a tool or public service

There was one case of a new tool that uses data to produce data.

In this case the tool would provide a prediction that an individual is at risk of not being in education, employment or training. This might also be referred to as a public service that includes automated decision making (ADM).

This kind of tool comes with multiple risks, such as: unfairness and discrimination against some communities, or that the prediction is treated with too much certainty and used inappropriately by other tools, people or organisations when it might turn out to be flat out wrong.

Data-driven public services is one of the purposes that the National Data Library is meant to support and that the DSIT digital centre works on with departmental teams like DWP Digital.

“We will publish new guidance on using a Risk of NEET Indicator (RONI) approach and provide a new data tool so that local authorities can better identify those at risk of becoming disengaged and put preventative measures in place”.

“Under the accountability and data sharing frameworks of a future Youth Guarantee, the college informs the Mayoral Combined Authority that Luca is at risk of not being in education, employment or training.

A local, youth-focused community organisation commissioned by the Mayoral Combined Authority reaches out to Luca to offer support and encouragement to re-engage and explore his employment or further education options”

Data produced as an official statistic

There were several references to data that, when you follow the footnotes, has been produced as an official statistic.

Official statistics are independently regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation and there is a community of practitioners in and around the public sector.

“Data shows that only around 31% of prison leavers are in employment 6 months after release and 46% are employed in the 6 months following completion of a community sentence.”

“While many mothers want to care for their children full time, survey data indicates around half of non-working mothers would prefer to work”

“The latest available data shows that the relative poverty rate (after housing costs) of children in households where all adults work was 14%, compared to 75% for children living in households where no adults work”

Data produced for policy development

There were multiple references to data being used to help develop policies. It is unclear whether this data would be produced to similar methods and standards as official statistics or whether some other approach would be used.

While official statistics are openly published, data for policy development might be kept within the public sector and not published transparently. Often data for policy development comes from multiple sources and is linked together and analysed to find insights.

Existing initiatives like the ONS’s Integrated Data Service and DSIT’s data marketplace might support this work.

“The government wants local areas to have improved data to understand local population needs and to help design future programmes. We also need better data to track outcomes and develop the evidence base”

“We will continue to engage the expert Labour Market Advisory Board announced by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to provide the government with insight, ideas, and challenge. The immediate priorities of the Board…include job quality and progression, opportunity and equalities, health and inactivity, regional inequalities and data”

“By linking migration data with skills and employment policy, we will ensure that training in England is aligned to labour market needs”

“It will draw on local and regional vacancy data and Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) to inform its skills needs assessments”

Data produced for service planning

There were a couple of places where data appears to be being used to help plan and carry out operational services.

This might be produced using similar methods as data for policy development, but it typically has a different audience with different capabilities and needs.

“This will work with Integrated Care Board leaders to further reduce waiting times and improve data and metrics and referral pathways to wider support services.”

“In August, the Department for Education introduced new statutory guidance for schools and local authorities on improving attendance, supported by comprehensive near real-time data in England”

Data to describe a type of computer system

There was one reference to a type of computer system for data.

A team developing and maintaining a system like this might follow guidance from the DSIT digital centre or, as this particular system is in the health sector, guidance produced by the Department for Health and Social Care or NHS England.

“as well as exploring opportunities to utilise the data platform created by Our Future Health in partnership with the NHS”

Data as something that needs governance and could be used for many purposes

There were a couple of broad references to data being information that could be used for many things, but that needed appropriate governance.

Local Get Britain Working Plans trailblazers that require “governance and management – including accountabilities and responsibilities across partners, and arrangements for data sharing”

Youth guarantee trailblazers that require “Governance and management – including accountabilities and responsibilities across partners, arrangements for making the best use of data, and management structures.“

Data as an enabler for other unspecified things

And a couple of references to data being something that could enable other, loosely specified, things. These examples seemed to differ from the above as they did not explicitly mention aspects of governance.

“Developing further tools will also provide the foundational data to enable further opportunities to transform the services”

“To enable [more enhanced collaboration between Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service], a new England-wide data sharing agreement between the Department for Education and DWP will be put in place from winter 2024”

Let’s get 2.5million more people on the internet

2015-09-27 / peterkwells / 0 Comments

During the Summer of 2015 it was announced that the BBC would pay for a free television licence for everyone in the UK over the age of 75. In 2013–14 the cost of providing a free licence to the over-75s was £608m. The cost in 2013–14 was paid by a different bit of the public sector.

There was a lack of debate before the announcement was made but there was also something more worrying. A lack of creativity and ambition.

For £475m per year, much less than we have been paying during the sixteen years that the free license fee has existed, we could give everyone over the age of 75 free TV, free access to the internet and ongoing free training so that they can use the internet however they wish. This would get about 2.5 million more people on the internet helping to address the issue of digital inclusion and realise economic and social benefits from getting more people online.

Some of the over 75s will choose not to use the internet and simply use their new TV just like they used their old one. That is ok. There would be wider benefits for the rest of society.

We would save hundreds of millions of pounds a year of spend on legacy broadcast television technology. We would also free up space in the radio spectrum that can be used to improve mobile internet coverage. Unless we improve mobile internet coverage we will continue to struggle to get rural areas, and the people who live there, access to the internet. This impacts on economic growth and productivity. It can also stop an ambulance finding someone in need.

Poor mobile coverage will cause other problems in the future. It will slowdown the takeup and benefits of new technology such as drones, driverless cars or whatever new idea appears in the next 5 or 10 years. There are huge long term benefits from better internet access across the entire country.

By taking this more imaginative and ambitious approach we would help the country set off on a path towards a more digital Britain. A digital Britain that works for everyone. A digital Britain where everyone is online with the skills to know how to use it will be good for the people who live here. If we arm ourselves and others with the right skills we would have more control over our lives.

We can think more creatively and ambitiously about the free TV licence. We can give the over 75s free TV whilst also getting 2.5 million more people online.

It’s people that make Britain brilliant. Let’s get more people online and make Britain brilliant at the internet.