In this guest blog Michael Sowerby discusses how Public Bodies can make better use of the Digital Economy Act:
If your public body wants a streamlined, flexible and speedy way to share data to tackle fraud and/or reduce debt we have a legal gateway you can use - come and talk to the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA).
The Digital Economy Act 2017 (DEA) provides broad powers for information-sharing across the Public Sector for specified purposes.
The PSFA works with departments and public bodies to use these powers to pilot new data shares to find (and ultimately prevent) fraud and to better recover debt owed to the public sector.
It enables public bodies (and others – including private organisations) to work together and use each other’s data. Streamlined governance and ministerial oversight allows data sharing without the need for new primary legislation.
The government has also recently announced that it is retaining the debt and fraud data sharing powers of the Act following a statutory review of the legislation.
The review found that the Act has saved taxpayers at least £137 million through use of the powers, and that it has enabled more than 100 data sharing pilots across 70 local authorities and 17 government departments or agencies.
What we can do for you?
We are:
- A team based in the PSFA with 6 years of data sharing experience using the Digital Economy Act (2017) as the legal gateway to share data.
- Here to promote and facilitate data sharing to manage and reduce debt and to combat fraud.
We can:
- Help formulate your idea, working with you to understand your problem more fully, why you have that problem, and how data sharing may help resolve it - What, Why and How;
- Make contact with the bodies whose data can help you;
- Help you with the governance paperwork needed; and,
- Support you through the process from start to finish and beyond.
What will you get from us:
- Passion and professionalism to get your data share implemented and if successful continued into business as usual.
Please do get in touch to find out more - debt_and_fraud_dea@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
