Government set to transform info. Major re-think of how government bodies handle information will increase data sharing, finds Tracey Caldwell.

The government has launched a new information strategy focussing on increased digitisation and data sharing between departments. Public sector information professionals will be trained to hone their supplier skills, basing information management around the needs of citizens and businesses, not the government organisation's needs.

A spokesman at the Cabinet Office said the strategy, dubbed 'Transformational Government - Enabled by Technology' and announced this month, is intended to combine services under customer service directors who focus on information-using groups. They will establish the best delivery methods, including accessing government information by mobile phone or digital TV.

As electronic transactions for government services increase, the Transformational Government strategy plans a massive programme of digitisation to increase the amount of currently paper-based data available, and to allow data sharing between departments. Steve Coomber, a Cabinet Office spokesperson, said the digitisation will allow greater cross-referencing of information, such as easy access to birth certificates for benefit payments.

"The idea of data sharing is so that once information is in the government domain people won't have to repeatedly fill in forms," he said. New data fields, such as National Insurance numbers, will allow automatic cross-referencing and data sharing, instead of data ...