More detail on government's data sharing policy

Information sharing, the publication of crime data and support for the e-Borders programme are all in the Home Office Structural Reform Plan.

A draft of the plan has been published on the department's website. It places an emphasis on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, increasing the accountability of the police, securing borders, protection from terrorism and the protection of civil liberties.

Among its proposals is to support the fight against crime by ensuring hospitals share non-confidential information with police on knife and gun crime and other serious violence. The Home Office will work with the Department of Health on the policies, with the aim of having them in place by April 2011.

It also aims to improve the recording of hate crime by setting up systems and providing a consolidated set of data for relevant offences, to be published in an open and standardised format. The target date for this is December of this year.

The document says that police actions to tackle crime can be made more transparent by the publication of local crime data every month in a standardised format. This should enable the public to obtain proper information about crime in their neighbourhoods, and hold the police to account for their performance. This is also scheduled to be in place by December.

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