The UK government intends to bring relevant public services together to introduce a ‘one stop shop’ for people dealing with the death of a relative. Relatives of the deceased currently have to cope with several government departments to carry out necessary administrative procedures. The government hopes that the new action plan will overcome this kind of inefficiency.
In a Cabinet Office report, issued on 24 March plans are set out regarding the use of technology to link together the relevant services and enable them to share information across departments. The most important introduction would be that of a ‘Bereavement Portal’, which would be accessed by the main citizen portal, Directgov at the end of this year. Directgov already offers some information for grieving relatives but if the proposed developments take place it would enable people to register deaths, cancel benefits and tenancies, inform relevant agencies and sort out probate with a single ’sign-on’. Other developments anticipated include a web-based system allowing the electronic sharing of information about deaths by registrars; improved IT facilities installed into registries, connected to the Court Service’s central IT system; and the possibility of pre-populating Department for Work and Pensions forms with information already held.
All these plans raise issues of data protection and the security required to control the safe sharing of information. Hence the is a need for significant legislative changes and as a result the plans are termed ‘aspirational’, with the aim to be completed by 2015.