UK launches National Data Library with early years kickstarter project
The UK government has launched the National Data Library (NDL), which it says will transform the data.gov.uk public sector data platform into “a single trusted gateway of curated high-quality public-sector data and resources brought together to address social challenges at a national level”.
The creation of the NDL is backed by over £100m (US$134m) as part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s (DSIT) £1.9bn (US$2.5bn) Spending Review allocation for cross-cutting digital priorities. It aims to “maximise the use and impact of public sector data, enabling businesses, academia and the public sector to drive economic growth, innovation and better public services”.
Currently, only non-personal, aggregated data is available on the NDL but a launch project will explore how services and data could be better connected in specific instances.
Read more: UK closes AI pilots amid ‘strategic changes’ to prioritise legacy tech overhaul
Getting children school-ready
The Early Years Kickstarter project with Leeds City Council, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, and councils across the Liverpool City Region, will explore how connecting data across health, education and childcare services could help ensure children are school-ready. It is one of several NDL kickstarter projects that will aim to show what better-connected public sector data can do in practice.
According to the government, 32% of children now start school without the basic skills they need, rising to 48% of children whose parents receive certain social security benefits, and “this has a direct impact on their educational outcomes”.
Children’s needs are sometimes missed because the services around them can’t see the full picture. For example, a health visitor or education practitioner may spot something “but if those observations are sitting on separate pieces of paper, no one joins the dots – and it could cause a child to fall through the gap”, a statement from DSIT and the Department for Education said.
Technology secretary, Liz Kendall commented: “Parents, carers and children deserve better and our hard-working early years and healthcare professionals deserve the tools they need to do their jobs – not blockers. The more connected we make our services, the greater the difference we can make for children and families.”
Read more: UK outlines methods to quantify benefits of digital investment in government
Future potential
As the project develops, the government says data gathered from local authorities, education practitioners and health visitors on early years could help inform the development of a new collection on the NDL. NDL Collections are “curated collections of high-quality, accessible data”.
In time, it could help bring together health, early years and childcare data so that registered professionals like GPs, education practitioners, and speech and language therapists can see the full picture of a child’s development.
“In this instance, the more detailed data will only be securely and ethically shared to necessary services,” a statement said. “All data use will be underpinned by robust safeguards and strict data protection standards.”
The same approach could also support further collections on the NDL. Other kickstarter projects include connecting data to target energy bill support, reduce administrative burdens for people with long-term health conditions, improve adult social care planning, support businesses with access to legal information, and enable better use of climate and weather data.
In Global Government Forum’s Rewiring the State study, based on interviews with 12 UK permanent secretaries, lack of data-sharing was flagged as a challenge to addressing cross-government challenges. Several interviewees agreed that legal constraints are rarely the main blocker to data sharing but rather perceived risk and lack of clear incentives.
There was optimism about the potential of the National Data Library but permanent secretaries expressed a keenness to know more about what the NDL would look like in practice and how they could feed into its development.
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
