A study of the challenges and capability of the re-use of social care data

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Abstract

With populations growing in cities across the world, there is an increasing national and international interest in addressing the issues faced by citizens residing in those cities and by governments responsible for their governance. One feature of the population size is the volume of personal data that is collected by local government authorities in the course of their administration of services operating within the city boundaries. In the UK, large cities, such as Birmingham - the case study focus of this research - collect personal data from citizens, visitors and businesses to provide a wide range of services such as the collection of local taxes, education services, housing provision, leisure and recreational services and social care services for vulnerable adults and children.

At a time when UK local authorities are facing severe financial challenges following a decade of financial cuts as a result of the national government’s austerity programme, there is a greater emphasis on utilising those funds available to local government to support the needs and demands from an increasingly ageing and diverse urban population. In order to do this, local authorities are beginning to turn to the vast stores of personal data they hold on their service users to better understand the type, nature, location and cost of historical demand for services in order to understand future demand for services through prediction and preventative measures.

This research considers the issues raised by the aspirations of local authorities to exploit the value in personal data held by them through several routes. The research considers the legal and ethical frameworks that govern the collection, use and re-use of this personal data, it employs state-of-the-art data analytics and visualisation techniques to analyse multiple years of local government social care data for the city of Birmingham, and how the Council’s own plans and strategies for developing its data analytics capacity has been informed by and have informed this research. It further considers how the data is recorded in systems and how this affects the context in which the data can be used.

The research analyses the structure of the data being collected, its attributes, such as personal identifiers, how much data can be utilised for analytical purposes and the obligations this imposes on the subsequent re-use of the analysis. It considers the data flows in operation and how this affects the recording of data associated with the management and delivery of social care services by Birmingham City Council (BCC). The aim is to reveal patterns, trends and insights that may assist in the understanding of recording practices in the creation of personal data records, support decision making process and resource allocation management. This is a data-led study using data derived from personal social care records for adults and children. The outputs from this research have been shared with senior officers within BCC to enable it to learn from the research and deploy the ethical and legal frameworks and data analytical techniques presented in this research to support the local authority in implementing its data strategies to use data in order to meet their obligations protect and safeguard their most vulnerable citizens and the associated personal data.

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