Yesterday on 23 March 2023, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) released the reports within the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) project of the Ministry of Justice. This project is a three-year, cross-government pilot programme, demonstrating how the Government can support the individuals with complex needs through linking and improving data in a safe, secure and ethical way. Then, it shares and links a range of social policy datasets from across government to drive new evidence, insight. Also, it may help us understand how services delivered in one part of the government impact on outcomes in another.
Image by Mathew Browne from Pixabay
Key findings of the Report
The BOLD investigated 4 projects: Homelessness, Substance Misuse, Reducing Reoffending, and Victim Pathways, developing use cases outlining key research questions and datasets. The report listed the following key findings:
- In general, participants across the pilots are receptive to the principle of data sharing, and easily identify how this could improve public services.
- In line with these broader attitudes, participants are generally positive about the BOLD programme itself.
- Participants often have overlapping experiences across the key pilot areas, and are able to reflect on the relevance of BOLD across a range of audiences.
- However, although overlapping experiences are common, it shouldn’t jump into the assumption that individuals in specific pilots have experience of other issues covered by BOLD.
- Participants also express concerns about the degree to which BOLD could
negatively impact individuals and their outcomes. - There is also scepticism about the impact that BOLD is likely to have, stemming from broader distrust in Government and poor past experience
- To resonate and reassure members of key vulnerability audiences, the Government should develop BOLD use cases with four key principles in mind: relevance, impactful, clear and informative and non-stigmatising.
- Intermediary organisations are key gatekeepers for engagement with the target pilot audiences.
The Report’s considerations and engagements
In detail, the Report highlights the learnings, considerations for communicating BOLD, including conducting stakeholder and public engagement in the future.
- Engaging the target audiences requires the trust of bought-in intermediary organisations.
- The target audiences often intersect. However, BOLD should be careful not to make assumptions as if the audiences will always have intersecting experiences. In that case, BOLD risks reinforcing stereotypes.
- In order to build support for BOLD both among these audiences and intermediary organisations (e.g., charities), example use cases should lead with the impact for the target audiences.
- Communicating about the BOLD project will be key in building support for its aims. Proactively sharing what is new about BOLD, and what BOLD will and won’t do, will help to assuage initial concerns.
- Ongoing engagement and communication about BOLD will be important in ensuring BOLD’s success when it is put into practice.
For the further collaboration, the CDEI and BOLD also identify wider data ethics risks across the programme, create governance processes, practices mitigating these risks, and gather lessons learned for future data sharing programmes.
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