My Lords, for these purposes, I should remind noble Lords that I am the spokesman in the Lords for the Minister for the Cabinet Office and have spent long hours in this Room discussing data sharing and data matching during consideration of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act, when many similar issues came up. I must say that I had not appreciated how extensive data sharing was within the Audit Commission and local government. Central government has been approaching this matter with a rather greater degree of caution and hesitation. Perhaps I should phone the Guardian and tell it just what the Audit Commission has been doing in this regard. I am sure that that newspaper would like to make it a front-page spread.
I am very conscious that this whole issue of data matching and data sharing in the public and private sectors, given that they overlap, will occupy us all over the next three or four years. I have no doubt that at some stage, under whichever Government we have in two or three years’ time, we will be discussing some major new legislation in this area because the data revolution is moving so fast.
The possibilities for data matching and data sharing are increasing rapidly. I am conscious from my discussions around this issue within the Cabinet Office and with outside bodies, including the Information Commissioner’s Office, that national patient records are among the most sensitive issues for citizens as regards information sharing. As noble Lords will know, whether one can share limited information without allowing access to full information is one of the great issues in the area of data matching. Therefore, when one talks about data-matching success in local government—and I recognise, as we all do, that the detection of fraud and error is an extremely valuable and useful activity—we nevertheless all have to be aware that issues of privacy are very strong and powerful, and are protected by various lobbies in this country. We must therefore proceed with caution.
Discussions are well advanced on the issue of an appropriate home and we hope to be able to announce by Report stage that the matter will finally have been agreed. However, there are a number of final issues about accountability and management that still have to be settled within Whitehall.
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To some extent, this is a containment of current powers. Perhaps I should add that the Bill, as it stands, allows for the addition of further bodies as mandatory participants subject to consultation, and that in addition, a range of non-mandatory bodies, such as housing associations, already provide such data voluntarily. As this arises from the local to the national level, issues about function creep, which I think is what the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, was talking about, are there for others to object to. I stress again that we have to be careful about how easily we allow this to extend further. I am conscious that this is a difficult area and that the detection of error as well as of fraud is of value to local authorities and associated bodies looking for ways to save money and to use their resources as effectively as possible.
I understand that the Audit Commission has already run exercises looking at error rather than fraud, using its other powers and that furthermore, following the abolition of the commission, such exercises might not be possible. I am, therefore, interested in better understanding the outcome of such exercises, particularly how they have contributed in terms of improved efficiencies and savings for the participants, and thus the risks and benefits of including a power such as that proposed by the noble Lord, before considering the merits or otherwise of its inclusion. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to meet me after officials have considered this matter further with representatives of the Audit Commission and others. We can then bring this back at a later stage if necessary. With that full assurance, I hope that it is possible for him to withdraw the amendment.