AQW 20139/22-27

Ms Kate Nicholl
Alliance Party
South Belfast

Tabled Date: 08/01/2025
Answered On Date: 15/01/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Finance to detail any steps being taken to improve data sharing between government departments.

Answer:

Data and evidence are critical to good policy-making. Appropriately governed data sharing between government departments can enable cross-cutting analysis to identify more effective, more efficient ways of delivering services.

With that in mind I recently approved the NISRA 2025-2029 Corporate Plan. This Plan emphasises the importance of sharing data assets across Departments, to provide cross-cutting analysis to support joined up policy making and operational delivery. NISRA will formally launch their Corporate Plan in February and will actively promote and support the delivery of this important issue.

NISRA are partners in the Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) which aims to facilitate the linkage of administrative data held by government and public bodies and make it available to approved researchers in a secure way. The NI partnership (ADR NI) includes NISRA, Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast, and has successfully collaborated with departments to create several cross-departmental data linkages in the areas of secondary educational attainment; business and the economy; income and benefits; post custody mortality and farming life. Detailed information from the successful Census 2021 programme is also now available for research use at the secure facilities in Colby House.

The recently launched longitudinal Educational Outcomes Linkage (EOL) which focuses on secondary education, is the first stage to producing a NI Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset which will bring together data from the Department of Education, the Department for the Economy, as well as DWP and HMRC to assist in the understanding of educational pathways to employment. Securing new data assets to facilitate research is an ongoing priority for the partnership.