County’s local authorities lay plans for data matching based on Braintree deal with Vigilant Applications
Local authorities in Essex have moved towards setting up a county-wide compliance and counter-fraud system with a contract with Vigilant Applications for the relevant services.
Braintree District Council has led the procurement, recently signing a £430,00 deal with the company, which describes itself as a specialist provider of user behaviour management solutions.
The project is being coordinated through the revenues and benefits department of Chelmsford City Council, with Essex County Council planning to lead a county-wide communications campaign ahead of the introduction of the system in November.
Robert Hawes, revenues and benefits manager at Chelmsford, told UKAuthority that all the local authorities are signed up to use it, and while there are no immediate plans for other public authorities to join it will be possible in the longer term.
The system will work through each authority submitting an extract from the participating databases on a monthly basis, and data analytics being used to identify ‘risk’ records for further investigation.
“The purpose is to improve the accuracy of the information in various databases held by Essex councils by identifying inconsistencies and inaccuracies within the data, thereby ensuring that various discounts, permits and other awards are correctly granted,” Hawes said.
“Savings or additional revenue will be used to support the service provision by councils across Essex.”
Image by Greentubing, own work, public domain
