While penning an update for Public Sector Forums on the 'Effective Partnership Data Management' project I blogged about recently, I was alerted to the fact that a government review of information sharing legislation around benefits data is currently underway.

Given the public kerfuffle and subsequent climb-down earlier this year over the Coroners Bill, I hunted high and low for press releases, reports, or in fact  anything about this new review. I found nothing, well except for a mention buried away in the latest Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit General Information Bulletin [PDF] from the Department for Work and Pensions to council benefit staff, dated 23 November.

The review, says the bulletin, commenced 'recently' and' was prompted by growing requests from LAs keen to make use of customer data in order to deliver joined up services, or to provide more targeted take up campaigns'. It goes on to say

"The review aims to find out more about the circumstances where sharing data could be beneficial to customers and LAs. What would LAs like to do with customer data if the law allowed it? How far could service delivery be improved? What would customers be happy with in terms of sharing their personal data? We would like to build up a good picture of how customer data could be used to good effect, and how this might impact on LAs and on customers. We would also like to hear about any schemes where LAs have been able to deliver services more effectively by re-using customer data. Are there any models that can be replicated in other areas? Does customer consent work? Are these schemes operating as well as they might, or is the legal framework still proving difficult to work within?"

Councils (or those of the audience who picked on this) have been duly invited to give their input, though the consultation appears to be working to condensed timescales, as the deadline for LAs to respond to DWP is Wednesday, 16 December 2009 (i.e. now two weeks away).  By which time, the final version of the  Government's new IT Strategy will, of course, have already been published.  Unfortunately there's no mention of when the DWP plans to go about asking customers what they think about this. Though if they do, it'll have to be pretty sharpish as according to the bulletin, the Department is due to report the findings of its data sharing review in the New Year.

Now call me old-fashioned, but from a public/citizen point of view, I don't see how I  can possibly follow what's going on with my data any more.

I'm hugely excited by this. Sir David Varney, Gordon Brown's personal advisor on Transformational Government and architect of the Government's approach to data sharing, personalised public services and transformation in general is to face his critics in a public debate next month.

In a rare public appearance, Sir David - a man with a whole agenda and industry named after him - will go head-to-head with, amongst others, none other than arch-nemesis Ian Brown, one of the authors of the Rowntree Database State report.

The discussion, going by the title of Data Sharing or Database State? takes place as part of this year's forthcoming Battle of Ideas festival.

All very timely too, given a whole new public discussion on government data sharing, public privacy and the implications of the 'transformational' agenda now seems to be taking shape. Even to the point where I turned on the TV the other day to see Philip Schofield moderating a debate about the Vetting and Barring Register on the This Morning sofa, as only he can.

Following the Government's point-blank dismissal of the Rowntree report, it's encouraging (if not nothing short of a miracle) to see very senior policy makers, for once, actually being willing to engage in public debate about data sharing, particularly at a forum such as Battle of Ideas.  It brings to mind a memorable moment last year at a Public Sector Forums conference on identity when Meg Hillier, the ID Cards minister at the time, pronounced:

"The debate has already happened, the 2006 [Identity Cards] Act is passed and further opposition is pointless"

– a view apparently not appreciated or endorsed by all those present.

So congrats to Jo Herlihy, organiser and chair of the Database State debate session for securing Sir David's attendance. This should definitely be one to watch. The only thing is, why do I get visions of Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom addressing Open Tech 2009?

Very quietly last week, the Government published this report. It's worth reading because it sets out plans to build what is effectively the ultimate 'Big Brother' database.

The project, being led by the Department for Communities and Local Government, is called EPDM, short for 'Effective Partnership Data Management'.

Though sounding fairly innocuous, EPDM has been described by those involved in the project as the 'silver bullet' for the public sector's data sharing problems.

The remark came from consultants Xantura, who were commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government last year to develop what they called

'a strategy and programme of work to challenge assumptions and constraints to the sharing of data between public sector agencies'.

The plan, it now transpires, is to give every individual an ''Integrated Citizen Record' which will track their every interaction with government and trigger automatic alerts to other databases on any change.

At the centre of this is the 'data-sharing platform' which will enable police, councils, NHS bodies and other government agencies to exchange personal information they hold on citizens.

According to the report, information currently stored in separate databases will be funnelled into a network of local 'data hubs' run by Local Strategic Partnerships. (LSPs by the way are non-statutory bodies, led by councils, which bring together government, voluntary groups and private businesses to tackle local issues).

Like a souped-up version of the Identity Cards database, EPDM will create a central record of all information held on a citizen using, says the report, 'regularly refreshed data sets extracted from LSP partners' systems'.

Similar to an advanced version of Gordon Brown's Tell Us Once project, the single change of circumstances service currently being trialled by government, EDPM will notify each partner agency of any changes to any database.

Proponents of the project claim the plans will 'significantly improve service delivery' and lead to 'improved outcomes' by 'proactive targeting of services' based on 'advanced analytics' and 'automatic triggering of citizen event notifications'.

In other words, public bodies would have such detailed information about citizens they would able to 'predict' needs and take pre-emptive action.  The project proposes to test a series of what it calls 'intervention campaigns'.

However there is a further twist in that the EPDM system will have a further, core explicit purpose, namely to spot benefit fraud.

The EPDM 'data hubs' will enable records in different databases to be linked, helping to identify irregularities and discrepancies which could indicate fraud, similar to the National Fraud Initiative's 'fishing expeditions'.

According to the plans, a prototype system would be built to enable 'controlled searching across partnership data'.

The CLG report estimates that trialling the system with five Local Strategic Partnerships could save over £1 million alone in reducing fraud and overpayment of Housing Benefit.

The Department last week invited bodies to come forward to volunteer to act as pilots 'as part of a coordinated EPDM programme'.

The legal basis of the project is, however, not yet clear, as are the details of exactly who (and how many people) will be able to access these extensive – and potentially lucrative – pools of detailed personal data.

The CLG stated in its report that access would be 'strictly' controlled and the chosen solution would need 'to implement a rigorous set of control and audit reporting to eliminate inappropriate use of data. These reports will enable administrative users to view all data accesses that have been made – by whom and by data sharing protocol.'

It added: 'In this respect the solution will implement a data sharing control infrastructure that will limit access to data through either pre-approved data sharing protocols, created and managed in the system and through data sharing consents, once again recorded and managed within the system. '

The detailed report on the EPDM programme published on 30 July can be downloaded here.