Speeches by Green.

“The definition that the Report uses, at the bottom of paragraph 2.12 on page 27, is that the cases “remain open but are not awaiting an appeal decision or the outcome of further submissions to the Home Office. These claims are not being progressed, and the individuals involved have not been removed from the UK.””

“The guidance for complaints in children’s social care was issued 20 years ago and has not been updated since. Those who work in the system say that it is out of date, and the ombudsman echoes their concerns. Will the Minister outline what steps the Department is taking to ensure that the guidance is up to date? Will he…”

“You mentioned earlier the changes that are being introduced, and the new board. How long will it take for those changes to impact that group of people who I would refer to as effectively in limbo? How long will it take for you to unlock some of those cases?”

“I don’t think I asked my question correctly, so I will ask it again in a different way—my apologies. I am keen to understand how that tool, or that data, can be used innovatively. Where best practice or an innovative new way of using that data has been identified by a public body, how can that be scaled up and rectifie…”

“Are you comfortable that, at the present moment, broadly we have the balance right?”

“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…”

“So they now exist?”

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

“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.”

“So it is being embedded in the system.”