Recommendation 17

Officials from both departments described ongoing challenges joining up information across systems. The MoJ explained that achieving fuller interoperability “needs money and a focused effort,” and that enabling systems to “talk to each other and share data” is difficult given the different digital systems in use.35 The Home Office said it intends to address some of these challenges by creating “a group of data analysts across Government” to support data join-up; this is a sub-group of the new asylum board and is already working with the MoJ.36 Additionally, the Home Office said it is creating “a new blueprint” inside the Home Office to ensure that all data for the borders and immigration system moves from manual processes to Atlas, and told us some staff still operate off individual spreadsheets, resulting in multiple records and ongoing data quality issue.37