For much of its existence, DWP has shared data with other government departments and external organisations in some form. This has been a key enabler in improving other services and benefits available to citizens.
More recently though, several trends and factors have caused us to review how we provide external access to our data:
- We’ve seen an increased demand from external parties looking to use our citizen data to improve their own services
- There’s an ever-growing internal, legislative, and public focus on data privacy and security
- More of our internal systems and applications are in a state of change as we work to transform our services based on our Strategic Reference Architecture.
These factors give us some unique challenges when it comes to sharing data:
- How do we scale and simplify the process of interacting with our department, and provide a more modern interface which consumers now expect?
- How do we ensure our external data sharing conforms to legislation and policies, and that it always protects our citizens?
- How do we provide a consistent view of our data while our underlying tech landscape is in a state of change?
It was clear that we’d need to look at our existing solutions for external data access against these challenges, with a view to finding an updated solution to take us and our consumers into the future. That’s where Citizen API came in.
An Application Programming Interface (API) – essentially a defined set of rules which allow applications to communicate with each other – is a good solution for managing access to data.
In the case of Citizen API, these rules allow external organisations to develop their own applications which connect to our citizen data. Because APIs are based on common standards, developers have a uniform way to build these connections quickly and easily.
Citizen API features six different endpoints which are Citizen, Addresses, Claims, Relationships, Status and Match. The first five of these give access to specific data held about a citizen or the benefits connected to them. The Match endpoint provides a route to the DWP Matching service, which allows a unique citizen record to be identified without requiring their National Insurance Number. While our service can provide access to a wide spread of citizen data, using an API means we can have a high level of security and granular control over what we share with each consumer.
The most common use case for Citizen API is to confirm whether a citizen is in receipt of specific DWP benefits. This supports consumers who have qualifying benefits for their own services, as they can ensure they are only providing them to eligible citizens. The benefits for a consumer are significant:
- Entitlement checks can be automated to create more streamlined processes
- Labour-intensive manual checks can be removed to save resources
- Access to timely citizen data helps to reduce errors and fraud in processes
- Continued API checks can confirm whether citizens remain eligible for services and allow for adjustments should their circumstances change.
By enabling these improvements, Citizen API also has significant benefits for citizens:
- It can create an almost instant decision process when attempting to access non-DWP services and benefits
- It removes the need to provide evidence of benefits to other organisations or to share more personal data than is necessary
- Services can adjust to factors such as bereavements or changes in circumstances. This helps to avoid scenarios such as under or overpayments which can be difficult for citizens or their family members to manage.
Citizen API currently works with three external consumers meeting a variety of requirements.
Our first Citizen API consumer was the Scottish Government. As part of the Scotland Act 2016, Social Security Scotland were granted powers to create several new devolved benefits. These would migrate Scottish citizens away from any equivalent DWP benefits they may be in receipt of. Citizen API helps Scottish Government to administer the new benefits effectively by allowing them to quickly view a citizen’s current entitlement. This is a two-way relationship, as Scottish Government also keep DWP aware of any devolved benefits granted to a citizen as well as other changes to their details.
The first benefit our API supported was Child Disability Payment, which replaces child Disability Living Allowance for Scottish citizens. This began with a pilot phase on 26 July 2021, with the number of local authorities involved gradually increasing up to the national rollout on 22 November 2021.
Citizen API support for the Scottish Government has since expanded to their Adult Disability Payment benefit, which entered a pilot phase on 21 March this year and will roll out nationally on 29 August. Following this, support for the existing Scottish Child Payment benefit will move to Citizen API on 14 November. By switching to API access to support this benefit, we can replace several older data sharing solutions which are currently in place and allow these to be retired.
The NHS were the second Citizen API consumer, going live to support the Overseas Healthcare Service on 28 July 2021. This service provides UK pensioners who move abroad to an EU Member State with the same healthcare benefits a legal resident of that country would receive. As a qualifying benefit for this, applicants must be in receipt of a UK State Pension.
Citizen API later welcomed the NHS Healthy Start scheme as a consumer on 21 October 2021. This scheme provides vouchers to new and expectant mothers which can be used to buy healthy food or milk. The API is used to check that applying citizens are in receipt of the qualifying benefit Universal Credit. There are plans to extend the solution to automatically check against other qualifying DWP benefits in the future.
Support for Motability went live on 21 March this year. Motability is a charity organisation which helps citizens with a qualifying mobility allowance to lease a new car, scooter or powered wheelchair. Citizen API initially allowed Motability to check whether applicants to their scheme were in receipt of Personal Independence Payment and we will be extending this to cover checks for Disability Living Allowance.
Usage of Citizen API is anticipated to grow significantly, and the team are currently engaged with several new consumers, for example looking at validating entitlement for free TV licenses for the over 75s, the Warm Home Discount scheme and entitlement for social tariffs for Internet Service Providers. As well as investigating how DWP can use Citizen API for its new digital services. We have developed the capability for Citizen API to connect to any number of data sources. This means that we can transition to sourcing data from any new SRA service once it is live. Most importantly, we can maintain a single consistent front door to our consumers, and effectively shield them from many of the complexities and changes arising from our internal digital transformation.
With data governance, privacy, and security being critical to DWP, Citizen API allows us to stay in control of citizen data. Consumers are onboarded based on a strict data governance processes and data sharing agreements.
Citizen API supports many of our departmental goals, such as improving cross-government data sharing and enhancing the experiences of citizens as they interact with services across government.
For more information about the work of DWP Digital visit its careers website.
