Guardians of Data
A show where we explore the world of information law and governance; from privacy and AI to cybersecurity and freedom of information.
In each episode we will be speaking with experts and practitioners to unpack the big issues shaping the IG profession.
Guardians of Data
Connected Data: A New Approach to Information Sharing
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
How can we make better use of the information already held about children to improve their lives?
That is the question explored in the latest episode of the Guardians of Data podcast. Ibrahim Hasan is joined by Professor Mark Mon-Williams, who holds a Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Leeds, and is Professor of Psychology at the Bradford Institute of Health Research.
Mark argues that children and families do not fit neatly into the organisational silos in which public services operate. A school may see attendance and educational needs, a GP may hold health information, and social care may have a different part of the picture. When those pieces remain disconnected, important patterns can be missed. As Mark puts it, “the challenge is to move from fragmented services towards a more holistic, child-centred approach”.
Mark is one of the executive authors of a report (Connecting Data: Intelligent and informed delivery to support every child to succeed ) which was published in July 2026 by a group of academics, education professionals and children’s services practitioners. The report suggests a new model approach for information sharing to improve the lives of children and young people (Connected Data).
In this podcast, we explore how the Connected Bradford project, is putting that approach into practice, and discuss examples where linking health and education data has revealed issues that would have been difficult to identify from individual datasets alone. But this isn't simply a conversation about the benefits of connecting data. The UK has tried to improve information sharing before, from ContactPoint to Care.Data, and those experiences raise important questions about privacy, governance and public trust. We discuss what is different about the Connected Data model, including its emphasis on devolved systems, secure environments and community engagement.
We also examine the emerging policy landscape, including the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 and the proposed education data spine, and ask what greater connectivity could mean for the future of children’s services. And there is a wider question: as public-sector data infrastructure increasingly involves major technology companies, how do we ensure that public data remains under public control?
Listen now and join the conversation about how we can connect data to improve children’s lives while protecting their rights, privacy and trust.
Useful Links
The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration
Podcast - The Government's Plans for Children's Data
This podcast is sponsored by Phaselaw - a purpose-built solution for document disclosures, like subject access requests and FOI requests. Instead of redacting PDFs one by one, or forcing litigation software to do a job it wasn't designed for, with Phaselaw you get collection, review, and redaction in one workflow. Teams across the World are using it to cut response times from weeks to days.
For Guardians of Data listeners, Phaselaw is offering a two-month free trial; run it on live requests, see what it does to your backlog, decide from there. No card, no commitment.
Welcome to Guardians of Data, the show where we explore the world of information law and information governance, from privacy and AI to cybersecurity and freedom of information. I'm Ibrahim Hassan. In each episode, we speak with experts and practitioners to unpack the big issues shaping the IG profession. Today we're talking about one of the biggest questions facing public services. How do we make better use of the information we hold about children? The report, Connecting Data, Intelligent and Informed Delivery to Support Every Child to Succeed was published in July 2026 by a group consisting of academics, policymakers, public service leaders, and practitioners. It argues for a national devolved model of connected data to improve the lives of young people. The report says that the risks of sharing data have sometimes overshadowed the risks of not sharing data when children need coordinated support. It proposes a national devolved connected integrated care board using NHS infrastructure to connect information across services. The report contains 10 recommendations and draws on examples of connected data approaches already being used in the north of England. To help us discuss the report and the proposals, I'm joined by Professor Mark Monwilliams from the University of Leeds. Mark holds a chair in cognitive psychology at the University of Leeds and is Professor of Psychology at the Bradford Institute of Health Research. He's also a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's National Data Analytics Center. Mark is one of the executive authors of the Connecting Data Report. He's also closely involved with the Connected Bradford Project, mentioned in the report, one of the UK's most interesting examples of bringing information together across organizational boundaries. With Mark's help, we answer some of the big questions, such as what does lawful and proportionate information sharing look like in practice? How do we make sure that connecting data actually improves lives rather than simply creating another layer of infrastructure? And how do we ensure that it's done in a way which is fair, lawful, transparent, and ethical? Let's jump in. Mark, welcome to Guardians of Data.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsThank you. It's wonderful to be here.
Ibrahim HasanIt's going to be a fascinating conversation, I am sure, because we get a lot of questions with regards to effective information sharing. And as you know, it's something that information governance people, as well as child protection experts and other public officials, have been grappling with for a while. So hopefully we will have lots of listeners really interested in this. Mark, you're one of the executive authors of the Connecting Data Report, which was published in July of this year. I'd like to start with the basic premise behind the report, which is that children are being left unsupported and exposed to avoidable harm because public services are failing to share information effectively. Having done so much work in this area over a number of years, what do you feel are the barriers to information sharing? Why are public officials and those who can make a difference to children's lives still thinking about the risks of sharing information as opposed to risks of not sharing information?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo I think the barriers are cultural and political. They definitely aren't technical barriers. We know that because we've successfully connected information across our different public services. But there are complexities, and the complexities I think relate to the very siloed approach that we have to public service provision, where we have a number of different services, a number of different government departments, all responsible for a bit of a child or young person or family's lives. And they very much and correctly focus on the aspects of that child, young person, or family sort of lives that they have control over. But the difficulty is that children, young people, and families do not fall into nice, neat sort of silos. And this is why we really need to understand children, young people, and their families in a holistic manner. And the only way we can do that is by properly putting together all of the information that we hold on those children, young people, and families, and properly understanding the issues that they're facing in order that we can address those issues.
Ibrahim HasanInteresting. You mentioned the term silos. That's something that we hear often, particularly from information governance professionals. And we've been here before, though, haven't we, in terms of various reports into child deaths and neglect. I'm thinking about baby Peter, Victoria Climbier, and more recently, S Sara Sharif.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo, as you've mentioned, pretty much every other serious case review concludes that serious harm would have been prevented if we had properly shared information. And we're seeing it again in the Southport inquiry. Every serious case review flags up the fact that our systems just aren't fit for a purpose. I don't think we need any more warning sort of signals. Really, the question is after decade after decade of identifying this as a fundamental problem, why are we not addressing the problem? And that's where I think we're at at this moment in time. We've all got to come together to say this is completely unacceptable in 2026 and work together to resolve the issue.
Ibrahim HasanAbsolutely, I agree. What's great about your report, I found, was that it doesn't just highlight the issue. You have come up with a model of information sharing. But how is it different, this idea of connected data? How is it different to previous proposals of information sharing where individuals, where public officials, social workers may just pick up the phone, or the school will pick up the phone and pass on information to other agencies where they have concerns? This idea of connected data, can you just explain it a bit more, please?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsThere are two fundamental problems to relying on people picking up a telephone. The first fundamental problem is it just doesn't work. We know that because decade after decade we've seen the consequences of that telephone not being picked up. Secondly, it's potentially problematic because you don't have control over what information is being shared. So we can't be certain that information is being shared appropriately, safely, and securely. And this is why we need a new model, a model that allows information to be stored safely and securely, and the appropriate information shared with the appropriate individuals. And the model that we've adopted really just sort of takes the idea that we already host very, very sensitive information on the public. We host that information within the NHS. So we're hosting that information, then clearly it is beholden on us to make sure that information is held securely, safely, and with all the appropriate governance processes around it. And all we then are doing, all our model then develops, is the idea that if we have all that really sensitive information, well, having educational records in amongst that information, having information about the built environment, simply allows us to provide better public services. So that's really at the heart of our model, the idea that we already hold very, very sensitive information. We already have secure and safe data environments. So why not expand that information so we can properly connect up our public services?
Ibrahim HasanThat will certainly resonate with our listeners, the idea of properly joined up services. It's something that governments have been trying to tackle for many years. But here, are we talking about professionals being able to see information held by other organizations, data sets being linked for analysis, or something more sophisticated?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo all of these are possibilities. Once you have the connected information, you can then start doing targeted commissioning. You can start understanding where we need to improve public sort of service delivery. We can suddenly start operating in a three-dimensional technicolor world rather than trying to guess at what might be happening on the basis of black and white two-dimensional snapshots of a particular area or a particular region. So we really need information in order to effectively run public services. But once you have that connected data, well, then you can do all kinds of sophisticated things in a very safe way. So we can take pseudonymized extracts of those data and have scientists really exploring the data to understand where we can improve public service delivery. But we can also, and this is the holy grail, start sharing relevant information across relevant professionals in a very safe and secure way. And that doesn't mean that a pediatrician suddenly sees all of a child's education records, but it does mean a pediatrician can know if a school have any potential safeguarding concerns. So this is the model we would really like to move towards, where we can safely and securely share relevant information across professionals who really need that information if they're to meet their statutory responsibilities, if they're to meet the legal obligations that they have to provide the best possible care to that child, young person, and the family.
Ibrahim HasanSo it's not just about statistical analysis, looking at the sort of the bird's eye view, the overall picture of child services and services centered around children in a particular area, but it's also in a controlled environment, sharing and giving access to identify records where necessary. That's very interesting. What are we currently unable to see because of health, education, social care, and other services holding separate pieces of the big picture, which you mentioned in the report?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsWe're unable to see the intersections and interactions between health and social care and education and the criminal justice system. And we know that in our really disadvantaged areas, it's those gaps through which far too many children, young people, and families are falling. How can we possibly provide integrated whole system care to a child or family when we completely fragment ourselves? We have to start really understanding what's playing out holistically in a child, young person's life in that family sort of context. And the only way we can do that is to actually understand what's happening in school, uh, what's happening in the accident and emergency referrals, what's happening in terms of interactions with sort of social care workers, and so on and so forth.
Ibrahim HasanAll sounds very noble and that they are very important objectives. But of course, on the other side, as information governance professionals, as privacy professionals, our listeners will want to know what safeguards would you propose to put into place or have you put into place in projects that you've been involved in to ensure that the data doesn't or the system doesn't become a surveillance system. Of course, governments change, officials change, and we don't want to be in a situation where it becomes a way of keeping tabs on children as they grow up, monitoring adults. What are the safeguards that need to be put into place or that you would propose to put into place?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo I'm absolutely passionate about this topic. And one of things that worries me greatly is just the huge amount of information that private companies and various nefarious actors already hold on our population. This actually gives us an opportunity to really debate all of the governance structures, all of the safety sort of mechanisms and secure mechanisms that we need in place whenever we hold any public data. Remember, these public data are already held on our various sort of systems. All we're talking about is properly connecting them in order that public services can be effective. And the biggest way that you can actually ensure that this is done for public good is involve the public in this. We shouldn't be doing this without taking the public on this journey. And one of the reasons we've been successful in Bradford is because the huge amount of community engagement we do. We genuinely want to improve outcomes for every child and young person. And that's something that is shared as a desire by our communities. So we work with our communities. We place our communities at the heart of these endeavors, and that ensures that everything that happens is being done for the public good, not for the benefit of a few individuals or a few organizations.
Ibrahim HasanThat will be reassuring to our listeners. One of the podcasts that we have planned in the future is with Amnesty International because they've done a lot of work around the involvement of big tech in big government infrastructure and data projects. There's a lot of controversy at the moment with regards to the role that Palantir is playing in the NHS federated data platform. And there's been lots of concerns about their human rights record and what the final agenda is of these big tech companies. Are they hoovering up our data? What are they going to be using it for? So the idea that you are involving the public, you are consulting people who are going to be affected will be reassuring. And hopefully, those debates will come out as to which kind of companies, because inevitably, these systems and this connection, there will be an element of private sector involvement.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsI I completely agree. And again, I think this very process of starting this sort of debate is invaluable. Because the problem is we're just sleepwalking into a situation where we're giving our data away, or we think that uploading some data into cloud somehow is acceptable when we haven't really checked the extent to which we can retain the sovereignty of the data that we're uploading onto that cloud. And one of the things that we've been doing in Bradford is looking into investing in physical servers inside our NHS infrastructure so that we could be absolutely certain that the data that are held across our health services, but then the connected data sets, are as safe and secure and as robust to attacks as we can possibly create. And ensuring that some executive order written by some president in some country for dubious sort of reasons cannot suddenly lose our control of our public sort of other data. So, as I say, this is something we're absolutely passionate about. And we think that actually having this sort of conversation about connected data and what we can do to connect our data will really bring these issues out into the open and allow the public to really shape this debate.
Ibrahim HasanOne of the examples of a project involving connected data, and which you've been involved in, of course, is the Bradford Connecting Data Project. Can you give us some examples of your work there where you have discovered something where you have identified certain needs which you would not have managed to do had the data not been connected?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsYeah, so we've been very pleased to support a number of government initiatives and sort of priorities recently. So there's the independence prevalence review, which is really trying to understand why we have a special educational need sort of a crisis within the UK and why we have so much pressure on our autism and ADHD services within the NHS. And the reality is that these pressures are playing out across both health and education. So if you just look at the health data, it's very difficult to understand what are the levels of need within our population. If we just look at the education data, it's very difficult for us to understand how children's health barriers to education are playing out in the classroom. But by putting these sets of information together, we can suddenly start really understanding how we can improve our autism and ADHD assessment and support services in the NHS, whilst really improving the support that's provided in classrooms to children, young people. And what we can also see within the data is how that then will play all the way through to actually improving the rates of NEAT that we're seeing in this sort of country. So we can't have close to a million young people, not in employment, education, or training. And rightly, we're starting to look at what we can do for those young people. And this is part of the Milburn review. It's a big priority within government. But what we're able to show in the data is we need to start much, much earlier. And we need to be addressing that special educational needs sort of crisis if we really want to impact the number of young people who are having these adverse sort of outcomes at age 16 or 17. So these connected data sets are really allowing us to properly understand the root of the problems. And that means we can start tackling the root of the problems rather than continually reacting to the symptoms.
Ibrahim HasanThat's a great example. What I find interesting is that you're starting with the child's experience rather than the organization's database. Normally, we tend to think of information as belonging to the GP or the school or the local authority. You're asking what that information collectively tells us about the child or children in a particular area. And I can see the benefits of that, particularly. I mean, you mentioned ADHD recently. There's been lots of uh stories in the press about the length of the waiting list for a ADHD diagnosis. So I can see the benefits there, but it's child-centered, isn't it?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsThat's exactly right. So so I would argue strongly that that you know the NHS don't own the information about the sort of child. The school doesn't own the information about the child. Social care doesn't own the information about the child. What these public services have is information about their interactions with that child. And what we've got to start doing is moving away from doing what's best for an organization and start moving towards what's best for a child, what's best for a family. And that means really taking that family-centric, that child-centric view. And I think that's what the public wants. They don't want us operating in a way which is very, very, very convenient for an organization, but means that we fail to give a family the support that it requires. What we really have got to start with is the family, with the child, and start sort of saying, how do we make our public services fit that child, fit that young person, not the other way around?
Ibrahim HasanAbsolutely, I agree. And as you mentioned before, I think we have to stop operating in silos. And to be fair, public officials have tried over the years, particularly in the area of child protection, to get out of those, that kind of mentality and to build systems as we've discussed before. All the benefits of connected data, Mark, uh rely very much on having the data, on having the complete picture about the child. You mentioned in the report data minorities, children whose records may be incomplete, inconsistent, or missing. What are the consequences of that?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo the consequences are laid bare in so many serious case reviews that too often practitioners are trying to make informed decisions but on the basis of really sparse information. And the power of connecting data is you can suddenly start to synthesize a number of different viewpoints. So that allows you to make much, much better sort of decisions, but also allows you to identify where there are gaps in the records. And those gaps in the records may be because we haven't paid sufficient attention to really sort of supporting a child or young person, or it may just be limitations in our recording systems themselves. And this is another reason we're so passionate about starting to connect the data, because it allows us to start really challenging ourselves as to what we're collecting and are we collecting the information that we need in order to ensure that our services are provided to everybody, regardless of postcode or ethnicity or gender or social and economic position. And we saw that in COVID, right? That we saw that we're failing to record ethnicity. And this had huge practical implications for the way we were responding within the NHS. So gaining the process of connecting these data, having the debate about what information it is that we should be using to tailor our public services in a really effective sort of way, actually then allows us to start improving our very data collection processes themselves.
Ibrahim HasanSo one of the benefits, as you've explained, of the connected data model is that we will end up hopefully improving our records management, improving the data. So that means better decisions in relation to children, which obviously is an important outcome and an important benefit. Now, the report says that the connected data model could improve outcomes for children, which we would understand, strengthen public services, but it also mentioned support economic growth. How will it do that?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsWell, through various sort of mechanisms. So the first thing that you get if you start better supporting children, young people, is a healthier, better educated workforce. And you need a healthy, well educated workforce if you to stand any sort of chance of growing the economy. So that's one very practical way that we can start seeing some of these sort of benefits that have come. Through. But it also opens up the possibility of creating new tools within the NHS or new tools within education that can really tailor provision of services, provision of educational approaches to individual children, sort of young people or adults. And that could be transformative in terms of turning around the fortunes of the UK. So there are real, real opportunities to make much better use of our data assets. And again, not for private companies per se. No issue at all if private sort of companies generate a profit because they're doing the right thing. But in and of itself, we can start making use of the assets that we possess within this sort of a country in order that everybody in the whole country benefits.
Ibrahim HasanAnd there are some great examples within the report. And we've already mentioned Connected Bradford. Now, in terms of the history of information sharing, just to recap, we have been here before, Mark, in terms of initiatives to encourage better information sharing. We had Contact Point abandoned in 2010. The ambition there was to make it easier for professionals to know who else was involved with the child. And then we had care data, where the potential benefits of data sharing were quite significant, but public confidence became a major issue. How are the proposals in the report regards to connected data different to previous information sharing initiatives?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsI think for a start, you can't fiddle around the edges. If we want proper connected public services and proper integrated professionals working together effectively, then we need to have a common understanding. We need a shared information base. So we really are not just sort of talking about a little initiative over here that tries to sort of patch up some of the issues that we're facing. We're really calling for a fundamental rethink of public service provision and how we can use connected data to support that public service provision. And there are a couple of barriers that we've identified. I think one of the first sort of barriers is people are very uncomfortable. And I share the discomfort of very sensitive health data leaving the NHS. And that's why our model uses the NHS safe, secure data environments as the spine where we pull in other data sets into that secure environment rather than trying to sort of share information out. And we think that's that's sort of transformative in and of itself. And the other aspect of this, and again, I think where where things have gone wrong in the sort of past, uh, is that rather than trying to do this at a national level, our model is a devolved model. And because it's a devolved model, it means that we can really start working with our populations, our communities in places to start co-producing these sort of solutions. And that gets around a lot of the interoperability issues, which are often problematic. It gets around a lot of the public trust issues because it allows that proper engagement with the community, with the people who live in that place, where everybody's coming together in order to build services that are really fit for purpose for those sort of communities. And that's tailored approach and that place-based approach, we think is very, very powerful. And of course, we now have a country that's moving in that sort of devolved direction. So we feel that the time is right now to bring all of these things together and hopefully avoid the problems of the past.
Ibrahim HasanAnd as you say, you're not proposing one giant national database, which previous initiatives have, and having it in the confines or within the protected space of the NHS's infrastructure, not impenetrable, but certainly better than having it in other areas and having it held by the private sector, will of course reassure people and build trust as well. Just talking about trust, Mark, how did you build trust in the connected data project in in Bradford?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsBy holding conversations, by genuinely not wanting to do anything that didn't meet the desires of the communities that we're serving. At the end of the day, why are we doing any of this? We're doing this because we are passionate about improving the lives of the people who live in the Bradford district. So, of course, we want to work with the people in the Bradford district to ensure that what we're sort of doing meets their sort of concerns, that meets their desires for their for their families. So that engagement from the outset and that genuine desire to produce sort of something on behalf of our population really made the difference. And again, that's very, very difficult to do at a national level. But you really can do it when we're starting to talk at a local authority or an integrated care board sort of a level. So that's why we really feel that the devolved model is the only way this can be done successfully. Because if you don't do that, then how can you get that public engagement? And without that public engagement, how can you get the public sort of trust? So this is why we're so adamant that that devolved approach is the way to go forward from here.
Ibrahim HasanFor me, that passion of wanting to make a difference in the community came across within the report because you've got quotes from people who are involved, not just professionals but individuals, the photographs of the children also, it gave that a strong impression that it was very much about the children, about making lives better and not just having another technically minded initiative. But some people will say one of the barriers is the legislation. You have called for more clearer guidance and more information sharing gateways. How did you, in terms of the Bradford Connected Data Project, ensure that the system is not just trusted but also lawful from a privacy, confidentiality, data protection perspective?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo it's really, really important that we do everything ethically, safely, securely, and legally. And the approach that we took was to really take that child-centric approach and say, okay, what are the statutory responsibilities placed on our various organizations in order to safeguard children, provide them with appropriate health services, provide them with appropriate education services, provide them with appropriate social care services. And when we looked at all those statuary responsibilities, we realized that it was impossible for our various organizations to fulfill those responsibilities when they were unable to properly understand what was happening in that child's life. So we reframed the legal debate and started saying, okay, well, if these are all the statuary responsibilities and we need to connect the information in order for this organization to meet its responsibilities, is that is that an appropriate legal pathway? And it turns out that's an entirely appropriate legal pathway. And again, I think it's just the sort of difference between trying to say, uh, find your way around potential barriers and rather rethink this as a genuine effort to improve public services and start looking at the appropriate legislation. And I think when you start looking at the appropriate legislation, it becomes clear that actually, really, the impetus is on us to do this. And we should really be asking why we're not doing this, given the number of laws we start breaking if we're not able to operate in the way that the legislation is saying we should be operating.
Ibrahim HasanI agree. And sometimes the legislation is seen as a barrier, it's interpreted as a barrier, whereas, in fact, we've been saying for for many years that data protection actually enables information sharing. I mean, you mentioned the lawful basis, and for data protection professionals, they'll know about Article 5 of the GDPR, making sure that things are done fairly and lawfully. But when you look at Article 6, it talks about where it's necessary for compliance with a legal obligation. Obviously, lots of legal obligations in the area of child protection and public services, where it's necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or other people. And again, health, education, social work, they are vital services. And what you're trying to do is to ensure that those services are provided in the most efficient way, in the most holistic way for all members of the community.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsThat's exactly right. And when you start doing the counterfactual and think, if we're not sort of doing this, where does that leave us? It leaves us, I think, in a very questionable legal sort of state as well, a very questionable ethical position. And again, it just takes us back to the point that when you start looking at things from the child's perspective, from family's perspective, then we really have systems that are not fit for a purpose. And that's got to change and it's got to change our pace.
Ibrahim HasanAbsolutely. Just one last question in terms of the connected data project in in Bradford. Were there any findings that surprised you? Something that the connected data revealed that professionals hadn't expected?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsHugely. I mean, every day brings up new surprises. And again, though, you know, the problem is that that we have such partial views of our different services, of our different sort of systems, that you know, the human sort of our mind starts making assumptions. And what you see when you start connecting the data is those assumptions are often wrong. So frequently we we're surprised. And that surprise often comes with a sort of pleasure of realizing that perhaps there are solutions to some problems that otherwise seem intractable. So one of our first examples of this is when we were looking at the large numbers of children in Bradford who were struggling to read. And of course, we're all sort of thinking about issues regarding phonetics, regarding uh exposure to rich language experiences in in early years and so on and so forth. And what the data showed us clearly is actually large numbers of children were struggling to read because they couldn't see. So in the health data, we could see that there were children who needed glasses who didn't have glasses. And then we could match that up with education records and suddenly realize, oh, guess what? Turns out that actually seeing stuff is quite important when you're learning to read. So it's these types of insights that that come as a surprise almost on a sort of daily basis. But it's these insights that we need if we actually to tackle problems like poor levels of literacy or high levels of NET or high levels of adolescent mental health.
Ibrahim HasanThat's absolutely fascinating. So it's not just about child protection, it's about identifying the needs of the child in terms of education and other services. So you start off with the big picture, as in why are children not able to read in a particular area? They need classes, perhaps, but then that would filter down to the professionals so that the schools and the teachers can ask the right questions of the child and of the parents.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsAnd it also allows us to address the inequalities, right? Because often in our more affluent areas, families have enough social capital that they can kind of close the gaps that exist between the different services. When go to our disadvantaged areas, we can sort of see that that's really not the case. So, what this also allows us to do is just really start addressing some of those fundamental difficulties that are blighting the UK at the present moment. And that's also why uh we believe that this approach will help us grow the economy.
Ibrahim HasanAbsolutely. And as you say, the data's there. It's just a question of connecting it and then obviously making sure that professionals who know how to interpret the data are able to get access to it and do their thing.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsYep, absolutely. And that's the only way that we're going to properly be able to support every child and young person and make sure that every child and young person has the best opportunity to achieve and thrive. Uh, and clearly that's got to be the first obligation of a society. We're not looking after the next sort of generation. Then by definition, the future is extremely questionable.
Ibrahim HasanI agree. Now, Mark, the report that you're the executive author of has made 10 recommendations to government. What's been the response from government?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsWe're delighted with the response from government. Uh, government are taking all of these recommendations extremely seriously. And we're really getting to the stage now where we're starting to talk about how do we operationalize these recommendations? What would this actually look like? And you know, this is difficult stuff because it is cutting across all of our various sort of asylos. So it does mean Department for Education, speaking to the Ministry of Justice, speaking to DWP, speaking to DHSC. And that's challenging, but it's definitely a challenge that governments seem to be willing to address. So we're delighted to be working with government and supporting government as it tries to see how it can make the fundamental changes that are desperately required within the country in order to give every child and young person the best possible start in life.
Ibrahim HasanAbsolutely. And as recently, the government's announced or has enacted the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, creates a statutory information sharing framework for safeguarding and promoting children's welfare, provision for information standards, a framework for consistent identifiers. We've also got the Every Child Achieving and Thriving Schools paper, proposes a new education data spine. Are you encouraged by those initiatives?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsHugely encouraged. I think the School's White Paper is a really important part of the sort of picture. Really useful legislation. We've also got the NHS 10-year plan with its focus on prevention. And for me, prevention must mean children and young people, but we'll its focus on digital and sort of our data. So really encouraged by those those pieces of legislation. Also, really encouraged by the Independence Prevalence Review and the interim report that it put out, really encouraged by the Milburn report or its interim sort of a reversion. And I think that's really starting to show us that everybody's waking up to the issues that are playing out for practitioners, for policymakers, for the public. And hopefully really pushing us all to start that debate about how we can work together to improve public service delivery and how we can use connected data to really act as a facilitator towards that. And then the other thing, of course, which is really important right now is the move towards devolution and the model that we're proposing is a devolved model. So the increasing opportunity for mayors and combined authorities and integrated care boards to really seize the initiative within their regions is really, really exciting. So I think that the time's right. And it sort of feels like we're at that moment in time when we can start to get this over the finish line.
Ibrahim HasanWe're certainly moving in the right direction, as you say. Let's imagine the government adopts all your recommendations, Mark. Five years from now, what would actually be different for a child and their family? What would be your perfect outcome?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsWell, hopefully in sort of five years' time, we've really learnt uh from five years of intensive activity. Because what we're talking about is really the creation of feedback loops that allow the sort of system to learn. And that learning has got to involve how we have our services operating together. So I'd love to see no further serious case review saying, oh dear, we failed to share information, and that's why we've had this tragic death of a child. I would love to see every child and young sort of a person having their neurodiverse needs sort of met, every child and young sort of a person entering employment, education, or training. And I think this is all within our grasp. If we really start focusing in on children, young people and their families and looking at how our public services can support those individuals and those sort of families, and how we can really have all of our services pushing in the same direction. I I think, you know, I think we're just in a complete different place as a country. And I think it's it's all highly achievable.
Ibrahim HasanI agree. The will seems to be there from government. Technical solutions, I am sure, can be built. It's just a question of ensuring, as you have done in Bradford, and as you are proposing, making sure that the systems are genuinely useful, lawful, and above all, trusted. So definitely that is something to look forward to. Mark, you've made a very strong case for connecting children's data. And I'm sure that our listeners, not just the information governance professionals, but the other professionals that uh listen to this podcast will want to know more, maybe even get involved. So, where can they do that?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsSo, if you go to our Child of the North website, our Born and Bradford website, uh, then you'll see all of these reports, all of this information, uh, and you will see lots of opportunities to contact us and get involved and join the debate. So we love to work with people. Our whole approach is inclusivity, and we are always welcoming of anybody who wants to join our campaign to build a country that works for all children and young people.
Ibrahim HasanAnd if you'd kindly share those links with us, we'll ensure that we put them in the show's notes. And I gather that you have some events coming up where you'll be talking more about the projects, Mark?
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsYes, we're absolutely committed to disseminating our message and communicating. So we have lots of events that are coming up. If you look at our Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration pages, uh, you'll see various talks and various meetings where people can join in the debate. Fantastic.
Ibrahim HasanMark, it's been an absolutely fascinating conversation. We could go on. No doubt we will invite you back in five years or maybe earlier than that, hopefully, to talk about some more projects and how things are going.
Prof. Mrak Mon-WilliamsIt's been a real pleasure. And as I say, we we're just really, really pleased that these debates are happening and really, really grateful for you two for pushing forward those those conversations and making sure that we're all talking about how we can build a country that works for all children and young people.
Ibrahim HasanFantastic. Thank you very much for your time. That's all for this episode of Guardians of Data. A huge thank you to Professor Mark Mon Williams for sharing his insights and passions for a new approach to information sharing. At the heart of the Connected Data Report are some simple but powerful ideas that public services should be organized around the needs of the child and family rather than the boundaries between different organizations. And a new connected data model for information sharing would identify problems earlier, address inequalities, and give every child a better opportunity to achieve and thrive. And I think we can all support that ambition, but connecting data also creates responsibilities. The more information we bring together, the richer the picture we create of an individual and their family. That means we have to be absolutely clear about purpose, lawful access, security, and governance. We also have to think about what happens when governments, organizations, or priorities change and make sure that a system designed to support children doesn't gradually become a system for monitoring them. And there's also an important issue to consider with regards to the role of big tech companies in building and operating public sector data infrastructure. As these systems become more sophisticated, that's going to be an increasingly important debate. Who controls the infrastructure? Where is the data held? Who can access it? And what happens when commercial interests conflict with public sector interests? Mark himself highlighted the importance of retaining sovereignty and control over public data. For information governance professionals, there's an important role in ensuring that data protection and information governance are not seen simply as barriers to connected data. Our role is to help answer the important question, which is how do we connect data in a way that genuinely serves children and families, protects their rights, and retains public trust? Marx invited people to get involved in the work of the Connected Data Project, so do take a look at the links in the show's notes. If you want to learn more about the government's plans for children's data, have a listen to episode eight. If you enjoyed this episode of Guardians of Data, please share it with colleagues and others who work in information governance. It's a great way to help grow the IG community and support professional learning. Thanks for listening and join us next time on Guardians of Data.
