Guidance

Ministry of Justice: Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD)

Updated 16 April 2024

Applies to England and Wales

Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) is a Government data-linking programme which aims to improve the connectedness of government data in England and Wales.

The BOLD programme

Government is responsible for supporting people with multiple complex needs such as those who are homeless, victims of crime and offenders. Often this is difficult because information about the challenges those individuals face is held across different government departments and administrations and not frequently shared.

The Ministry of Justice led BOLD programme has been created to demonstrate how people with complex needs can be better supported by linking and improving the government data held on them in a safe and secure way. BOLD will initially focus on reducing homelessness, supporting victims of crime, reducing substance misuse and reducing reoffending.

Data used in the programme

The programme will use pseudonymised data from the Ministry of Justice, Department of Health and Social Care, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Public Heath Wales and the Welsh Government in order to show how linking it can improve the support provided for those with complex needs. Pseudonymisation is a technique that replaces or removes information in a data set that identifies an individual. We use pseudonymised data because although we do not need to know who you are, we need a way to link data about individuals across different data sets. Further information on the security measures we have put in place to protect your data this can be found in our ‘Data Privacy’ section below. Our partnership and programme builds on learning from other initiatives such as Administrative Data Research (ADR) UK. BOLD will run until the end of 2024 and its findings used to deliver changes to how government supports those in need.

BOLD consists of 4 data and analysis pilot projects, each aiming to provide better data and evidence to support policy and the design of more effective services to people with multiple complex needs.

Data and analysis pilot projects

Reducing homelessness

We know that those who are homeless or sleeping rough often have a variety of support needs, most commonly mental and physical-health needs, drug or alcohol dependency and offending histories. The Homelessness Pilot project aims to better understand why some people repeatedly become homeless, which services are most effective in preventing prison leavers from becoming homeless (and thereby decreasing their chances of reoffending), and what role drug treatment services can play in preventing homelessness.

Supporting victims of crime

36% of Victims report dissatisfaction with the way the Criminal Justice System (CJS) handled their case^{[footnote 1]}, with 32% of reported criminal cases dropped due to victims disengaging from an investigation or prosecution, with this figure having risen every year since 2014^{[footnote 2]}. The Victim Pathways Pilot project aims to better understand how government and third sector services can most effectively support victims of crime to cope and recover and to confidently seek justice. The ultimate goal is to use this evidence to improve victims’ experience of the criminal justice system and support them to achieve a positive justice outcome.

Reducing substance misuse

The illicit drugs trade costs society over £19 billion a year and drug deaths remain high. Those without stable accommodation or employment support can struggle to access and stay in treatment. The Substance Misuse Pilot project aims to better understand what factors drive successful rehabilitations from addiction for particular groups, such as prison leavers or rough sleepers. The ultimate goal is to use data and evidence to improve life outcomes for people receiving substance abuse treatment, through improving the assessment of additional needs where individuals come into contact with any government service. As part of this pilot, Welsh Government aim to ensure that challenges unique to Wales are also addressed.

Reducing reoffending

We know that reoffending costs society approximately £18 billion a year. We know, however, that an ex-offender’s likelihood of reoffending is significantly decreased if they have a home, a job and access to healthcare. We are tackling the causes of reoffending in order to keep our communities safe, and the Prison Strategy White Paper, published in December 2021, sets out the Government’s ambitions to tackle the root causes of reoffending. The Reducing Reoffending Pilot project will support these ambitions by linking data to better understand the impact of specific interventions to help offenders turn their backs on crime, particularly in terms of their linked outcomes (employment, health, housing and family).

Data privacy

Privacy is at the heart of BOLD’s design and ethos

BOLD is about using data and evidence to design better services for people, but given the volume, sensitivity and complexity of the data collected by government, BOLD takes its responsibilities to proportionately and ethically handle this data very seriously, and commits itself to robust ethical standards, as outlined below.

Legal safeguards and restrictions on data access

The data sharing undertaken by BOLD is restricted to only what is necessary to deliver specific ‘use-cases’. A use case is a piece of research or evidence that could help public services to be designed and delivered more effectively. For example, understanding why particular groups of drug users (such as ex-offenders) are engaging less frequently with addiction treatment services can help us to design services that better serve this hard-to-reach group.

Data cannot and will not be shared for purposes outside of these specific use cases, with each use case having been through an extensive process of identification and prioritisation, in line with the principles of Data Minimisation as set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Access to BOLD data will be strictly controlled via secure online platforms that follow government security rules.

Personal Information will only be shared where there is a legal basis under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. Where the data shared is Confidential Patient Information (as defined in section 251 of the National Health Service Act 2006), we will work with other government departments to ensure that a legal basis for sharing confidential patient information is identified.. This could be:

• The individual consents to the use of their own data
• There is an overriding public interest in sharing the data
• Where there is a legal requirement to share
• Where there is a legal power to share which explicitly sets aside the duty of confidentiality

Any and all data in scope for BOLD will be required to go through several levels of clearance.

• Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) are required for each project, in order to identify and assess risks to privacy and ensure appropriate protections are in place to minimise them. All DPIAs will be reviewed by data protection specialists in each government department to ensure data processing complies with the law.
• Information classed as ‘special category’ data under GDPR or as confidential patient information under section 251 of the National Health Service Act 2006, are especially sensitive, as is information about criminal histories. BOLD and its partner departments recognise the risk of this information being disclosed requires additional safeguards for processing and sharing this data.
• Data sharing involving health and social care data is required to robustly demonstrate adherence to the Eight Caldicott Principles, which set out the safeguards required for sharing this kind of information. This requires sign-off by a ‘Caldicott Guardian’ in order for any data sharing to take place
• Any data held by NHS Digital will be required to be approved by the Independent Group Advising on the Release of Data (IGARD), which will hold BOLD to the highest standards of stewardship and governance of data
• Data shared between organisations is governed by a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA). This establishes a framework for appropriate processing, including the contents and duration of the share, permitted uses of the data, the legal basis and justification for processing, and the protections in place throughout its lifecycle.

How we protect your privacy

Pseudonymising data is a way of processing personal data so that it can no longer be attributed to a specific individual without the use of additional information. This additional information is kept separately and under strict measures to ensure that this data cannot be identifiable. It is within the scope of data protection law, and the data will not be used in a way to identify any individual. Further information on pseudonymisation can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website here.

BOLD follows national best practice guidance via the UK Anonymisation Network’s (UKAN) Anonymisation Decision Framework and guidance produced by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Personal information handled through BOLD will, in all but one case, only be made available to a small number of technical data linkers, with the right level of security clearance.

Only those analysts working on the BOLD programme will have access to personal data. Access is limited to those who need to know in order to carry out data linkage activities. Analysts have received data protection training and are subject to appropriate levels of government security clearance. In order to link records together, they will only be able to see identifiable information required for linkage such as name, date of birth and address. Information not required for the purposes of linking will not be visible to data linkers. Information which can identify individuals will not be shared with researchers and will be replaced in the data by a new following identifier (one that has been generated for these datasets and is not used in any existing operational systems). Other identifiers, such as case IDs, will also be replaced.

There is one exception to this rule, which involves the use of data on offenders in order to support management of offenders on probation serving their sentences in the community. In this one particular case, information about offenders will be accessible to their probation officers to support managing their case. In all other cases, only pseudonymised data will be used to inform national level policy development and research, with no decisions taken about individuals, and no automated decision-making happening as a result.

How we engage the public

Public trust and engagement are critical for BOLD, and we have committed to undertake extensive public engagement with those individuals whose data are being shared, and with the wider public.

BOLD has so far engaged Change Grow Live’s National Lived Experience Group (NLEG) and the SAIL Consumer Panel, with a number of other engagements planned in the near future. In addition we have also engaged a number of organisations in the charitable and third sector, as well as service user advocacy groups.

BOLD have recently partnered with the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI), and Britain Thinks, to undertake extensive engagement with affected groups, trusted intermediaries, and the general public. This will include focus groups with the four cohorts of people BOLD is focused on (Victims, Offenders, Substance Misusers, and those experiencing Homelessness). The results of this exercise, and what we learn from listening to the public, will tangibly inform the design of the BOLD programme and be published on this GOV.UK page. The BOLD project is being governed by a panel of experts both internal and external to government.

How we store and protect personal data

Ensuring that shared data is handled in a highly secure and protected way is of the utmost importance to BOLD. The processing of personal data will be completed using two secure data platforms. All data relating to health and social care in England will remain within the healthcare system, stored in a secure and well-engineered environment within the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), using the latest technologies to keep the data safe. At no point will this data ever leave the healthcare system. Some other data will be stored within the MoJ’s Analytical Platform, another secure data environment, and Welsh-level data will be stored in the SAIL Databank, a secure Trusted Research Environment

How we are held accountable to ethical standards

BOLD submits itself to regular assessment against the UK Government Data Ethics Framework, which includes principles to guide the design of appropriate data use in the public sector, alongside the MoJ’s Ethics Advisory Group and DHSC’s Moral and Ethical Advisory Group (MEAG)

BOLD has recently undertaken a piece of work with the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation (CDEI) to design and publish a comprehensive Information Governance and Ethics Framework, which will essentially be a set of best-in-class guidance for other data sharing initiatives to follow in the future.

What is definitely out of scope:

• We will not at any time or for any purpose analyse health and social care data that has not been pseudonymised. Any use of health and social care data will be for the purposes of research, and will be examining trends across large samples of people, rather than investigating specific cases
• No data will be shared, at any time, or for any reason, for commercial purposes. The purpose of BOLD is solely to improve public services through evidence. BOLD will not share data with commercial organisations.
• We will not use health and social care data for any decisions taken about individuals – only for the purposes of supporting national level policy development and research

Further information, including analytical publications will be published on this page as they become available. A list of the datasets that BOLD is currently using can be found in the pdf at the bottom of the page and will be regularly updated as the programme progresses.

For further information, contact BOLD@justice.gov.uk

1. ONS Crime Survey of England & Wales (CSEW) 2021 ↩

2. CJS Official Stats June 2021 ↩