The New Homelessness Data system Where we’ve got to, where we want to go Dr. Andrew Waugh 25 April 2008

Overview History About the new system LA Reports Some ‘surprises’ we’ve discovered

About homelessness data It’s called the HL1 & HL2 HL1 is case based not a summary return A lot of data - c.50k new cases per year Paper return until 2001

About the HL1 data Radically overhauled in December 2001 and submitted electronically Each case has three distinct submission phases –Application –Assessment –Outcome

Work Flow LA sends in extract Validate data Send errors back to LA Validated data added to live master dataset Monitoring impact of legislation to Inform policy Produce regular reports for LA Improve data quality

New Visual Basic in Excel + SAS Core Bulk testing – 15 LAs including Glasgow in 1 hour. The old and new systems Old Access Overnight to process most LAs Weekend to process Glasgow

System Highlights (1) Multiple extract processing Automatic filing of extracts and error reports for audit trail Intelligent updating of cases LA Reports

SHA-1 Encryption of NI numbers SHA1(“AB123456C") = 8ee890f6 d27197ff f7e84647 ce d09812 System Highlights (2)

LA Reports Automatically produced if no errors Or can request one at any time Two versions – quarterly or financial years

A Sample Report

Data Quality Issues More households in temporary accommodation than are homeless

Data Quality Issues Cases are being left open and not closed off Good case management

Data Quality Issues Good case management Not so good

LA Reports Default settings to answer questions

Next Steps Creating a culture of continuously improving data quality Bedding in LA reports Getting data in from all LAs

Any questions…?