Service provides Scottish councils with new channel for address validation in advance of replacing entitlement cards
Scotland’s Improvement Service (IS) has begun the implementation of its recently developed Data Hub address validation service for local authorities.
It has said that West Lothian Council was the first to begin using the hub for managing data around the National Entitlement Card (NEC), and that it has succeeded in validating the addresses for 97% of cardholders aged over 60.
UKAuthority has been told that more councils are following suit and that the service could be available for other public authorities in Scotland.
The Data Hub has been developed as part of myaccount, the single sign-on mechanism for Scottish public services, and is hosted by the Improvement Service on a private cloud. Councils can send over datasets they hold, from sources such as council tax records and the edited electoral register, which can be used in the validation process to prove an individual lives at the address they have given.
Refence numbers
It also draws on unique property reference numbers from the One Scotland Gazetteer and unique citizen reference numbers from the General Register Office, and can create a single view of the customer within a council. Local authorities can request the type of output file they need to work with their own systems.
Although the Data Hub has been developed initially for managing data around the NEC – Scotland’s national smartcard for access to public services – in advance of replacing more than a million next year, IS said it can also be used to keep internal customer data up to date.
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