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Addressing the problem...

The initiatives on the last few pages won’t resolve “GDPR says no” or all the technical problems on their own, and there are plenty of occasions when personal data shouldn’t be shared – but there will always be scenarios where that data is needed, and needed fast. It could save lives.

 

  • Data will be held by various entities, usually indexed to a person or a location.

  • Person-focused records will often use one of the key national identifiers – NHS number or NI number.  These are reliable enough within their native systems (NHS, HMRC, DWP), but can't be cross-referenced.  A great deal of time and effort is spent comparing names, dates of birth etc, to match records across systems. 

  • Location-focused records ought to be using the ultimate national unique identifier – the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). 

  • Most if not all person-focused records will include an address.  That address has a UPRN – another unique identifier that could help to match or cross-reference records.

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“In public services ‘everything happens somewhere’. Incorporating UPRNs in datasets makes it possible to combine risk flags as alerts of potential problems at household rather than the individual level, with relevant attributes then shared only with those in appropriate roles – which helps to maintain confidentiality. This focus on a property rather than an individual can help ensure sharing remains within the terms of the Data Protection Act 2018.”

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Sharing data to support vulnerable people: Requirements for standardisation, attribute flags, location data and information governance in the identification and support of vulnerable people (GeoPlace/UKAuthority, April 2023)

UPRNs - a beginner's guide

The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) is a unique lifelong identifier for any addressable location, which remains consistent throughout the property’s lifecycle from planning application to demolition.


A parent/child structure allows for a “parent” UPRN for an overall building and separate “child” UPRNs for units in that building – flats, office units etc.


Every UPRN is classified according to a detailed classification scheme, which distinguishes (for example) residential property from commercial property and sheltered accommodation from care/nursing homes. (You can download the full classification scheme here.)


UPRNs are allocated by local authorities through their Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG), and submitted to GeoPlace – a partnership between Ordnance Survey (OS) and the Local Government Association (LGA) – for national co-ordination and publication.


They are published by OS through the OS AddressBase Premium product, and accessible via the OS Places API (now updated daily).


Central government has mandated the UPRN as the national data standard for all its departments and agencies for the capture and exchange of address data. However, there's some evidence that adoption is uneven (e.g. DWP, DVLA).

UPRNs - Benefits

  • Greatly improved data quality for address records.

  • Significant time savings at the point of data entry.

  • Nationwide coverage of address records.

  • Geographic co-ordinates for all addresses, allowing for improved spatial analysis and more effective emergency response.

  • Interoperability between the line of business application (LOBA) and other internal and external systems.

  • Greater visibility of people and/or households who have complex needs and/or contact with multiple services.

  • Improved data analytics through the use of a lookup tool such as the ONS UPRN Database, allowing operational data to be interrogated alongside, and in the context of, population data.

UPRNs - Benefits for system administrators

Incorporating UPRNs in datasets is best practice in any case, and would help to resolve a number of other problems for organisations:


  • Address records in many line of business applications (LOBAs) are captured through manual data entry or use of a gazetteer.

  • Gazetteers often only cover a local authority’s own area, leaving out-of-area addresses to be input manually, either by service staff or by system administrators.

  • Gazetteer management is itself a significant overhead, and is often deprioritised because of cumbersome and resource-intensive system design. Manual data entry is time-consuming and leads to errors and inconsistencies.

  • In working with one authority, Socitm Advisory discovered that almost 20% of the postcodes in their LOBA were invalid – either the postcode did not exist, or it was mistyped and referenced an address elsewhere in the country. (G and H are adjacent on the keyboard, but GU and HU postcodes are some distance apart!)


The OS Places API could provide lookup functionality for any system in use by an authority, allowing the capture of the accurate address, postcode, UPRN and geographic coordinates for every address in Britain.

UPRNs - preparing for Local Government Reorganisation

At least 185 two-tier local authorities, serving 19.2m, people will go through Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) during this parliament – probably more.


Councils will need to disaggregate and/or combine their data to reflect new unitary authority boundaries and/or responsibilities.


Staff (and elected members) may not know the whole authority, its services, its residents, and/or its geography in as much detail as they need to.


More than ever before, any new unitary needs to have a clear and consistent picture of its residents and services from the outset. This means the legacy authorities' data needs to be consistent. Use of the UPRN across all legacy authority systems would help with that consistency, not least by allowing county and district records about a household/address to be connected.


The top priority for the new unitary authority will be to ensure that it’s operating safely and legally on Day One.


“We do literally keep people alive in many of our services for our vulnerable children and adults. Transferring those services across, making sure that data wasn’t lost, that cases weren’t dropped, that the focus on people was still maintained, was a critical part of the transition.” (Chief Executive, Dorset Council)


That said, a recent webinar hosted by the Local Government Association (LGA) made the point that, whilst aiming for the "safe and legal" target, it's important to build long-term value for the new unitary rather than to create short-term solutions that will need to be replaced. Incorporating the UPRN in legacy systems will do both.


The LGA's Better Use of Data Programme promotes this approach and will serve as an important focal point for its further development.

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