Data integrity defines child protection and welfare in East Sussex

Multi-agency information sharing and assessment is taken to new levels by East Sussex County Council with innovative ClearCore software from Infoshare+ – a leader in data quality software and services.

Information lies at the heart of the government’s determination to deliver ‘a step change in the quality, accessibility and coherence of services’ for children and young people under the age of 18. But it has to be high quality, accurate information. Determined to achieve the best possible information sharing system, East Sussex County Council has just replaced its previous information sharing software with a unique ClearCore solution from Infoshare+ that doesn’t just support information sharing, but cleans and validates that information.

Infoshare+ specialises in using factual matching and tailored business process rules to measure and improve data quality and is an expert in information sharing to create a single view of disparate data. By opting to use the cost effective and fast ClearCore solution from Infoshare+ to replace a system that had become too slow to deliver the information levels required, East Sussex County Council has achieved some significant benefits:

  • a better more accurate match rate – quicker than ever
  • a solution that is easier to maintain and administer
  • a more accurate single view of children and their every contact with the practitioners who support them
  • annual operational cost savings – both in terms of maintenance fees and the solution’s self sufficiency.

The data integrity provided by the ClearCore cleansing and validation processes ensures that every single agency contact with a child – whether Education, Social Services, Health, SureStart, Youth Offending and more – can draw on accurate, up-to-date and relevant information in support of the child’s welfare. The benefits to the children – especially those at risk – are huge, with the practitioners responsible for their wellbeing being better able to identify problems and track and quickly refer at-risk youngsters.

Making contact

As councils actively work on their local ContactPoint data preparation projects ahead of the National ContactPoint Index, the East Sussex County Council solution has provided some valuable learnings. Steve Bracewell, project manager within the Council’s Corporate Resources directorate, comments: “We selected the Infoshare+ ClearCore solution for a number of reasons. Its ability to match names from disparate sources was, of course, essential, but the cleansing and validation of data were crucial differentiators. We are reliant on ClearCore finding as many matches as possible, whilst ensuring virtually no false positives.”

This validation and cleansing stage also produces complete data quality measurement, profiles and a wealth of other data quality reports that add to the validity of information resources. At East Sussex, internal technical teams had already developed in-house SQL and Java scripts and these performed a number of validations and data manipulations. However, the overheads of maintaining these were becoming too high, whereas ClearCore has this functionality as standard, plus there is ongoing support, which means lower maintenance costs.

The solution provides a credible method for tracking back to fix hidden individual data errors which degrade IT performance and can adversely impact data integrity. In addition, a customisable rules function allows the Council to apply name matches in accordance with local needs.

Knowledge sharing

Deployment of the new ClearCore software was carried out in just seven weeks by Infoshare+’s implementation team working closely with the Council’s own technology team. Knowledge transfer was a central element of this process as Infoshare+ Account Manager Jane Keys explains: “Our collaborative way of working combined with the focused user training meant that after we’d jointly completed the first few datasets, the East Sussex team were fully self sufficient – adding a further six data sets themselves within the seven-week timeframe. The cost savings to the Council by avoiding additional consultancy fees will continue to accrue.”

The user training delivered by Infoshare+ included interactive computer-based lessons and practical testing, as well as face-to-face training and theory

Best available view

With the deployment of Infoshare+’s ClearCore software for data cleansing and validation East Sussex County Council is spearheading the journey to the National Contact Point Index that is central to the UK Government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ strategic objective.

ClearCore is providing East Sussex with an accurate, validated single view of all the cross references and contacts made with the children in its care. This single view, often referred to as a ‘golden record’, is undoubtedly the best view of all available data.