Speeches by Green.

“I am keen to understand how you will make it easier for public bodies to fund and use innovative data analytics. We have talked about the road map, which we look forward to seeing, and the platform that you mentioned earlier, but I am keen to understand how their use will be funded and then how they are actually used.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do we currently strike the right balance between protecting individuals and allowing public bodies to identify fraudulent behaviour? Do you think that anything needs to change?”

“But the ultimate responsibility for that hub rests with your Department?”

“Is that an active piece of work taking place at the moment and are you working to a specific timeframe, or is it a never-ending project because tools constantly—”

“That is really helpful; thank you. And thank you for using legal aid as an illustration, because—I won’t lie—I am finding this quite difficult to follow because we are talking in the abstract, so a concrete example really helps. One thing that the Report refers to is that, quite often, data-sharing agreements are betwe…”

“Who makes that decision? Do they make that decision themselves?”

“So they now exist?”

“It is not yet a complete list.”

“That’s a new acronym on me.”

“Is that the algorithmic transparency recording standard?”

“And complicated.”

“I would like to turn to a slightly different topic: transparency around the use of AI. Understandably, concerns are expressed about transparency and the fairness of using data analytics to tackle fraud and error, and I think the NAO Report references officials saying that meeting the requirements of transparency can be…”

“Thank you very much.”

“I would like to look at the barriers that public bodies face in trying to tackle fraud using data analytics. If, for the sake of argument, we say there is a set of targets, what needs to happen to enable public bodies to meet those targets? Mark, what barriers can you identify that public bodies currently face? Why is …”

“So it is being embedded in the system.”

“How would you do that? What would that look like?”

“Some of the challenges sound quite basic, on the surface. The Report says in paragraph 2.19: “Public bodies continue to find it difficult and bureaucratic to share data…even though it is permitted under legislation.” I was surprised to read that “public bodies do not know what data can be shared, or the information tha…”

“Before you do, Mark, how is that captured? That sounds like a group of individuals meeting. There are hundreds of public bodies, and they are not all going to be in the room for that, so I am keen to understand how that is captured and shared.”

“I should declare an interest: I am a patron of one of the wonderful hospices that serves our community in Chesham and Amersham, and I know how it would answer this question, but I am keen to get a national perspective. Toby, how would you describe the present state of the independent adult hospice sector in the UK?”