Quality Assuring an Information Governance Framework for Vulnerability

by Shelley Heckman, Published 7 April 2021

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Today we are talking about information governance. Those that follow the SAVVI blogs will know that we are in phase two of our initiative to support data standards for vulnerability, and that this is not the first time I have

blogged about this topic.⁠

Indeed, back in phase one, we clearly identified consistent and persistent issues when we asked local government colleagues about blockers and barriers to using data to identify those individuals and households that were most vulnerable.

The output from all the workshops, discussions, and a little ‘light’ reading of the ICO Guide to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and various other codes of practice, is the first iteration of the

SAVVI Information Governance Framework⁠

. This IG framework defines and recommends the steps that partners should go through to establish data sharing, particularly for secondary use of data, so that information is handled legally and ethically.

Over the course of SAVVI phase two, we will be asking our case-study partners (Huntingdonshire District council and North Yorkshire County Council) to apply the SAVVI IG Framework to their respective vulnerability projects. We are keen to test the SAVVI IG framework and prove that it clearly supports public sector organisations to handle vulnerability data, and to make good decisions about such data. To support this, we have assembled a working group of public sector information governance practitioners to help us to quality assure the outputs and propositions from the case studies.

The SAVVI Information Governance Quality Assurance working group, which we have cleverly shortened to ‘SIGQA’ held an inaugural meeting on 31 March 2021. At the meeting, we went through the terms of reference for the group, and discussed how the working group will function. Since this date the group has been renamed as the SAVVI Data Enablers Group.

The role of the SAVVI Data Enablers Group:

Acts as an expert guidance group to provide support and guidance for the Information Governance lead(s) within the SAVVI Project

Provides a Quality Assurance role for the IG outputs from the SAVVI project

Acts as a critical friend of the SAVVI project in IG related matters

Champions the work of SAVVI among professionals from local authority and partner organisations, working in information governance, information management and information analytics related roles.

We are pleased to announce the following as members of the SAVVI Data Enablers Group:

David Willis, Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System

Michelle Wood, Assistant Director -Policy, Change and Reform, St Helens Council

Phillipa Nazari, Assistant Director Information Governance and Data Protection Officer, GMCA and TfGM

Debbie McCarron, Data Compliance Manager, Salford Council

Emily Griffiths, Head of Information Governance and Data Protection Officer, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS FT

Jason Geldard- Phillips, Data Governance Manager, North Yorkshire County Council

Sally Lever, Information Governance Manager, Wigan Council

We are still welcoming new members to the SIGQA working group; if you are interested in joining this group, do not hesitate to contact me at

info@istanduk.org⁠

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