Connexions links data via web system

National youth support service Connexions has cut management information administration by 40 per cent using a web-based database system.

Connexions is run by the Department for Education and Skills. Its 47 partnership organisations across the UK send monthly batches of aggregated information - such as the number of young people in education, training or employment in their area - to the central Connexions Service National Unit (CSNU).

More than 8,000 pieces of data on 4,000 young people are collected by the CSNU every month.

The web-based system, developed by consultants Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, has helped solve data quality issues by creating a central database of information accessible simultaneously by all authorised personnel.

Information used to be collated locally on spreadsheets and then sent in to the CSNU, says Brenda Alexander, head of the management information and systems team.

'If we found anomalies they were discussed with the partnerships and then amended, but if the original wasn't amended then when they sent the next month's data it would overwrite the corrected data for the month before.

'One of the big advantages of the new systems is people in head office and in the partnerships can both call up data at same time and know they are looking at exactly the same thing.

'It has saved a lot of grief in having to always be re-checking and re-correcting earlier months' errors, which over a 12-month period can be quite time consuming,' said Alexander.

The system went live in April and saves the central team around 40 per cent of the time they used to spend every month improving data quality, she says.

Because the database is accessible over the internet using a standard browser, information can either be entered at the partnership level or from a sub-office. And the system can also be used to publish reports and guidance documents.

The ability to view, input and amend data is controlled according to their position using a role-base security system.

'Though the data contains no individual information, so there is no danger of anyone being identified, we still wouldn't it to go astray and having a role-based system gives use greater security,' said Alexander.