UK government’s ‘once only’ rule to remove need for citizens to repeat information
The UK government will implement a rule meaning that citizens don’t need to repeat information across multiple services and departments, a minister has confirmed.
Responding to a parliamentary question earlier this month about how the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) plans to reduce duplication in digital services and consolidate departmental platforms, Feryal Clark, digital government and artificial intelligence minister, said: “The government will establish a ‘once only’ rule, so that if people have provided information to one service, it can be reused by others with appropriate safeguards.
“It will start with central government services and commonly reused data but be designed to scale over time to the broader public sector and more information.”
She added that the government has also committed to introducing a ‘digital backbone’ to drive “the integration, orchestration and instrumentation technology needed to share capabilities and build true end-to-end journeys”.
Register now for Public Service Data.AI 18 September 2025 – London, UK
Brought to you by Global Government Forum and hosted by HM Government, Public Service Data.AI is the UK’s flagship annual event for civil servants working to unlock the power of data and artificial intelligence across government. Free to attend for all UK public servants, this event brings together digital leaders, policymakers, data specialists and service designers to explore how the effective use of data and AI can drive smarter, fairer, and more responsive public services.
From modernising digital infrastructure and fostering public trust to ensuring ethical AI procurement and improving data-sharing across departments, Public Service Data.AI 2025 will focus on the key enablers of successful digital transformation.
Find out more and register here
The need to streamline services
The reforms were first outlined in the Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government published in January.
The State of Digital Government review that informed the blueprint found that, although improvements have been made such as through GOV.UK consolidating multiple organisational websites onto a single platform, people and businesses are often required to navigate the gaps between multiple public services and organisations to manage life events such as moving house, having a baby or reporting a death. It found that managing a long-term condition or disability requires interaction with more than 40 services across nine different organisations.
The average UK adult citizen spends a week and a half dealing with government bureaucracy
every year, the review said. Previous reforms have developed what the UK government has called a Tell Us Once system, which lets people report a death to most government organisations in one go.
The European Commission promotes the adoption of a once-only approach as a way of helping to automate cross-border services. In September 2024, the OECD Council on Human-Centred Public Administrative Services recommended the adoption of the once-only principle for member states to prevent “unnecessary administrative burden and complexity while maintaining administrative obligations and compliance requirements which are simple by default”.
The OECD defines the principle as not requesting users to supply the same information more than once to any service provider at any level or branch of government, enabled by interoperable data-sharing systems and other measures such as user’s consent to the re-use of data.
Read more: Births, deaths and everything in between: designing services around peoples’ lives
Data sharing challenges
The State of Digital Government Review identified key barriers to data-sharing including technical limitations, risk-averse cultures, unclear regulations, different governance standards and legacy systems.
Another parliamentary question, also from Clark’s fellow Labour MP Sarah Hall, asked what recent assessment has been made of the potential barriers to cross-departmental data integration and what steps are being taken to help mitigate them.
Clark said: “The Blueprint for Modern Digital Government sets out the first steps in the government’s plans to address these challenges, including work to strengthen and extend our digital and data infrastructure.”
She said this includes developing guidance, standards and tools for fast and secure data exchange, such as a mandate for the publication of a standard set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) by public sector organisations, and the development of a cross-government Data Management Hub to support the adoption of consistent best practice.
“We are also expanding data sharing legislation, where necessary, and creating the National Data Library to provide the trusted data foundations needed for the delivery of a modern digital economy,” she said.
Read more: UK government launches GOV.UK digital services app for smartphones
About Sarah Wray
Sarah has over 15 years’ experience as a journalist with a specialism in the public sector and topics such as digitalisation and climate action. Sarah was formerly the editor of Cities Today and Smart Cities World, as well as a specialist video-based publication in the aerospace sector. She has also written for publications including Smart Cities Dive, Mobile Europe, Mobile World Live and Computer Weekly.
Related Posts
