Helping the London Borough of Camden get tough on crime

Camden is running its Residents Index as an “invest to save” project, meaning an investment at the outset will save money in the long run. Having a single view of the customer is enabling the London Borough of Camden Council to introduce a ‘collect once and use many times’ approach to data. Key to Camden’s success has been the implementation of a robust data governance framework to ensure data on citizens is gathered, stored and managed appropriately across key systems in 16 locations across London. 

Created using the latest IBM Big Data and Analytics solution, the resident data – a 360-degree view of Camden’s most business critical data - includes data from Electoral Services, Housing and Council Tax Services. Camden has built a very powerful and detailed permissions control system, enabling authorised users from each service to see only the data that is relevant to them. This new Big Data environment enables the Council to take a proactive stance against fraud and ensure services only go to the residents and households who are entitled to them.

Camden Councillor, Theo Blackwell said: “Big Data is revolutionising the way we work across the borough, reducing crime and saving money just when public services are facing huge funding cuts.

“Take School admission fraud; parents complain about people gaming the system by pretending to reside in the borough to get their kids into the most sought-after schools. Now with the Residents Index in place, Council staff can carry out detailed checks and identify previously hidden discrepancies in the information supplied to the Council to prove residency. We have already withdrawn five school places from fraudulent applicants making sure that school places fairly go to those who are entitled to them.

“The Resident Index has proven its worth, helping the Council to become more efficient, and now contains over 1million relevant records. This is just one example and we have other plans to use the benefits of data technology to improve public services and balance the books."

The newly built Residents’ Index has met the Council’s stringent data protection requirements making it easier to safeguard children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. It is used to ensure that child protection social care agencies can be provided with relevant authorised data to quickly build up a full picture of a situation, helping them to respond to a child’s needs quickly and efficiently.

Camden is also using the Residents Index to ensure it has one of the most accurate Electoral Registers in the UK. It was able to fast track the registration of more than 80 percent of its residents and identify new residents who need to vote.

This project comes against the background of councils across England facing the combined challenge of implementing major budget reductions whilst maintaining a high level of service to its residents. The Local Government Association (LGA) suggests that English councils face a £5.8 billion black-hole in funding for 2014/2015.

“IBM is helping the UK public sector transform public services by providing technology that will unlock the power and potential of the data it holds to help achieve significant efficiency savings. These efficiency savings help empower both staff and the local communities they serve,” said Tony Ellis, IBM Public Sector Data Specialist.
Camden worked with IBM Business Partners SCISYS and Entity to develop and deploy the residents’ index. The implementation itself was completed within just three months.
Camden’s Big Data and Analytics technology is based on the IBM InfoSphere Platform which provides all the foundational building blocks of trusted information, including data integration, data warehousing, master data management, big data and information governance. It is a part of Watson Foundations, a comprehensive, integrated set of Big Data and Analytics capabilities that enable clients to find and capitalise on actionable insights. InfoSphere technology provides counter fraud software and services that offer predictive, content and investigative analytics to help prevent and solve cases of fraud for private and public sector organisations.