DWP kicks off massive cross-government data sharing project
The project aims to make it easier to respond to changes in the labour market
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has kicked off a nine-month pilot project, aiming to create a cross-department data store for sharing crucial labour data across various government departments.
The aim of the Labour Market Data Trust pilot is to assist the government in better responding to changes in the labour market.
According to Computer Weekly, HM Treasury's Shared Outcomes Fund, which encourages government departments to collaborate to tackle difficult policy issues, is funding the project.
The goal of the pilot is to better understand and evaluate the possibility of addressing various departments' labour market data demands. It also aims to make data available and discoverable in a form that allows for monitoring and data governance.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will lead the work, collaborating with other departments such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Department for Education (DfE), and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The various offices will work together to improve the evidence base and inform interventions that support economic recovery and levelling up.
The effort builds on the Open Data Institute and Alan Turing Institute's work on data trusts and data safe havens.
Paul Lodge, chief data officer at DWP, said his department is committed to maximising employment across the country to support the economic recovery post-Covid.
"It's also the case that other government departments need granular insights into everyday labour market developments, especially those affecting local areas, specific sectors and disadvantaged groups," he added.
Examples of the need for data from other government departments include the DfE's National Skills Fund and the BEIS' UK Innovation Strategy, which aim to boost productivity across the economy.
Lodge believes that existing data sharing arrangements across Departments are not only time consuming to put in place or amend, but also resource intensive.
In line with Mission 1 of the National Data Strategy ('unlocking the value of data'), the DWP wants to move away from batch file data sharing and towards in-place data shares. This should allow data to be shared from a single source and reused several times without having to duplicate it.
The UK government published its National Data Strategy in September, outlining its vision for unlocking the power of data to create new jobs, boost innovation, and improve public services across the country.
The National Data Strategy aims to put data at the centre of the UK's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, so government organisations and private companies can boost their performance.
As part of the Strategy, the Government plans to hire and train 500 data analysts by the end of the next year. It is also looking to recruit a new chief digital officer to command a whole-government scheme to transform the use of data, in an effort to improve public services and drive efficiency.
The Government also plans to launch a new £2.6 million project to address obstacles to data sharing and support innovation to expose online threats.