Via Computer Weekly, we see that “The London Borough of Brent is working on a project to provide a single view of residents’ data which will allow the council to improve customer service and the overall accuracy of council records. When complete in November, the project will allow Brent to conduct customer profiling in order to improve council services and offer additional services to residents. It will also help Brent comply with the Data Protection Act, which requires that information stored on an individual should be accurate.”

This could be very good. “The project has involved mapping out which systems hold the most accurate information. Customer data is extracted from the nine core council systems each night. The Initiate tool then matches customer records from each of these systems and links them together to form a master index of all customer information called the Client Index. Aside from building the master customer record the project also includes identifying change of circumstances eg change of address that have been recorded on council systems. All changes are passed back to council departments to ensure their systems are kept up to date. ”

Does anyone else notice that UK local governments have been leading the way for a couple of years?