News

The Scottish Health Informatics Programme (SHIP) has been working to define a record linkage infrastructure to support health records research in Scotland, following many months of review of international best practice.  The blueprint of how both the research infrastructure and corresponding governance infrastructure could work is now available to view here.

SHIP is consulting widely with stakeholders across Scotland including the public, Caldicott Guardians, data controllers, researchers and the NHS and would be very grateful for any comments you may have.  If you would like to comment please contact Violet Warwick, SHIP Manager on 01382 420105 or email V.R.Warwick@dundee.ac.uk.

SHIP (Scottish Health Informatics Programme) are pleased to announce their Advanced Training Workshop on the theory and practice of analysis of large sets of linked administrative health data at an intermediate to advanced level.  Advanced principles of health care epidemiology are combined with hands-on practical exercises in the implementation of computing solutions.  

The five day course is presented by Professor D’Arcy Holman and will be held at the University of St Andrews between the 4th-8th June 2012.  The cost of the course is £350.  There are 35 places available.  For further details and registration information click here.

The Scottish Government have organised a one day conference to focus exclusively on data linkage for research and statistical purposes.  The conference will cover a variety of topics including statistical methods for data linkage, models for linkage centres, individual referencing systems, alternatives to the census, privacy impact assessments and the Scottish Longitudinal Survey. 

This free event will be held on the 26th March 2012 in Edinburgh.  For further details and to register please click here.

The ADLS has released a new publication entitled ‘Accessing and sharing administrative data and the need for data security’.

This publication includes information on the common elements of administrative data access and sharing in the UK and outlines the provisions included in the Data Protection Act to enable the use of personal data for research purposes. New innovations to improve the sharing of administrative data for research are also discussed. The document can be accessed from here.

The ADLS Statistical Disclosure Risk Analysis Service enables data holding organisations to confidently release anonymised datasets into the public domain. The service can provide either:

 1. An audit of existing statistical disclosure control practices at your organisation.
 2. An assessment of the statistical disclosure risk of a dataset(s) to be made available to the public.

The Department of Communities and Local Government has recently used this service to determine the disclosure risk of archiving their Supporting People datasets into the UK Data Archive. Further information on this service and the full report of this work is available to download here.

The Secure Data Service (SDS) now makes available secure access to business microdata collected by the Office for National Statistics, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and other government agencies. This workshop is designed for new and intending users of data and will introduce researchers to the range of business data and survey areas.  

These data are confidential, and collected under statistics legislation. They are highly identifiable and can only be accessed under secure conditions.

This half-day workshop (13:00 – 16:00, 28/02/2012, University of St Andrews), will outline how the SDS and application process work. It will also cover the business data held by the SDS and their characteristics.

For more information please click here.

The ADLS Advisory Board consists of senior members from government departments and the Information Commissioner’s Office.  The Board met last December to discuss developments with administrative data sharing across government and to get input from the Board  into current ADLS activities.  Notes from the meeting are provided below for your information.

Representatives attended from the following organisations:
Administrative Data Liaison Service, Information Commissioner’s Office, Office for National Statistics, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Communities and Local Government, NHS Information Centre, Department for Work and Pensions, University of Leeds and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Apologies:
Department for Education, Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office.

1. Update from Government departments to improve sharing of administrative data for research

Communities and Local Government
The CLG had been working with the Government Statistical Service to improve the sharing of data between government departments and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).  This work  included developments regarding ‘approved researcher’ status and access to CLG  data via the ONS Virtual Microdata Laboratory in the longer term.

Department for Work and Pensions
The DWP have been working with the ONS to provide their Customer Information Systems data (includes benefits, employment and National Insurance data).  Regulation is being put in place for this to happen.  The DWP is also engaging with other research organisations where there data would be of benefit.  As part of this process they are putting together a strategic framework to outline how they can legally share such data and under what circumstances.   

The DWP have been actively feeding into the Cabinet Office Open Data policy and are putting in place guarantees to publish aggregate data on benefits, such as Universal Credits.  Access to DWP microdata will fall under the Welfare Sector Transparency Board and more information will be provided about this in the DWP Autumn statement. 

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
The HMRC have recently launched their Datalab to allow researchers access to certain datasets for research purposes.  They are now looking at how to link their own to data to other sources (including DWP).  The HMRC will explore the legal gateways to check if it is possible to include linked data (such as the Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study) in the Datalab.  HMRC are also considering a number of options for making their data available for linking, including potentially via the Secure Data Service in the longer term.

NHS Information Centre
The NHS Information Centre are releasing GP practice prescription data under the transparency framework. They also have a dedicated pseudonymisation service with one way encryption.  They treat pseudonymised variables as non-personal data and so therefore falls outside of the scope of the Data Protection Act.

Information Commissioner’s Office
The ICO discussed issues that surround the transparency framework and problems regarding anonymisation, disclosing data, gaining consent and the Data Protection Act. There was a consensus from the Board that solutions to these issues need to be found.  The ICO highlighted that a closed community approach together with the creation of an environment that not only allows good research use of the data but protects the confidentiality of the individual would be an ideal balance.

The ICO are going to produce information on Section 33 of the Data Protection Act which provides some exemption to some of the principles of the Data Protection Act.

Office for National Statistics
The ONS have been making use of administrative data from other government departments under the information sharing order powers of the Statistics and Registration Service Act. They are building up a strong knowledge about the strengths and limitations of administrative datasets and how they can be used with their work on the Migration Statistics Improvement Programme and Beyond 2011.

In the longer term access to ONS data for academics will be via the SDS and the VML will be used for government researchers. 

Other comments
The Board felt that there needs to be some primary legislative change to allow shares of data between departments and any such legislation must be explicitly clear on the issue of both the share, re-use and ownership of data.

2. Administrative Data Task Force
The ESRC advised that a new Administrative Data Task Force has been set up to look at the issues and barriers faced by academics to use administrative data for research.  The Task Force is headed by Sir Alan Langlands and group members comprise senior officials from government departments and other professionals.  The Task Force will meet over the next nine months and report back with recommendations at the end of this period.

3. New ADLS developments
The ADLS advised on the following two new developments:

i. ADLS Trusted Third Party
The ADLS Trusted Third Party is a mechanism to allow the linkage or enhancement of datasets where there are privacy or security concerns.  The TTP is based at the University of Manchester.  The ADLS are currently looking for a demonstration project to help demonstrate its validity.  For initial enquiries contact the ADLS here.

There has also been new research to encrypt data prior to linkage but still retain similarity in the string.  This would theoretically mean that the data will fall outwith the Data Protection Act.  More information on this research is available to download here.

ii. P-ADLS – Methods, Models and Codes Bank
The Portal of the Administrative Data Liaison Service is a new ADLS online development to archive methods, models and codes used in administrative data research. This development came out of the recommendations from previous Board meetings which highlighted the problem where research datasets were not archived for future use because of conditions stipulated by data controllers.  The aim of P-ADLS is to improve the consistency, quality and quantity of administrative data research by allowing researchers to view, replicate and develop existing methods and models and benefit from code already created.  There are currently over fifty resources in the P-ADLS Bank. 

For any further information or clarification on these notes please contact the ADLS.

The Royal Statistical Society will be hosting a meeting to discuss a recent project which involved the sharing of administrative data between the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.   The aim of the data-share was to improve the evidence base on the links between offending, employment and benefits, to support policy development.

Administrative data used includes the Police National Computer (PNC), Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study and HMRC P45 spells.

The meeting will be held on Tuesday the 21st February 2012 at 5pm at the Royal Statistical Society in London.  For full details, registration and to read the initial findings from the project click here. 

The European commission has proposed a change in the 2003 directive on the re-use of public sector data to make the information more freely available.  The move is part of a new Open Data Strategy which also involves the creation of a web portal due to be launched in spring 2012.  It follows initiatives by member states including both the UK and France, which are already making large datasets available for inspection and for developers to re-use in creating new information services. 

The main proposals for changes to the directive are to:

• Make it a general rule that all documents made accessible by public sector bodies can be re-used for any commercial or non-commercial purpose, unless protected by third party copyright.
• Establish the principle that public bodies should not be allowed to charge more than costs triggered by the individual request for data. In practice this means most data will be offered for free or virtually for free, unless duly justified.
• Make it compulsory to provide data in commonly used, machine readable formats to ensure it can be effectively re-used.
• Expand the reach of the directive to include libraries, museums and archives for the first time.
• Introduce regulatory oversight to enforce these principles.

For more information on the Open Data Strategy click here.