Tash Shifrin

The UK's NHS Connecting for Health is seeking interest from local authorities to pilot system to share information between social services departments and the planned NHS National Care Record Service. The electronic record service is at the heart of the NHS's US$25 billion National Programme for IT, but has been the subject of much controversy.

Members of Parliament have criticized "a worrying lack of progress" on implementing local systems to support the planned National Care Record Service.

The U.K. government's Courts Service has reaffirmed that the long-delayed Libra case management system will be fully rolled out by the end of next year - although it has so far reached fewer than one in eight courts. The Libra project began in 1998 and has seen repeated delays and cost hikes.

The U.K. government has admitted that fresh delays have hit its scandal-hit Libra project to provide a case management computer system and infrastructure for magistrates courts. It is the second recent blow to justice system IT projects, following the announcement earlier this week of a review of the C-Nomis offender management system.

The U.K.'s Conservative Party has reiterated that it will scrap the government's 5.3 billion -pound ID cards scheme as ministers announced that the delayed procurement for the program had finally begun. Shadow home secretary David Davis says the project will do nothing to improve security, while costing the tax payer 20 billion pounds in the process.

U.K. Members of Parliament have called on the government to speed up its efforts to promote data sharing between government departments and local authorities to boost the uptake of council tax benefits. The MPs acknowledged concerns over privacy, but noted witnesses' evidence that the public may not share the same fears about data protection.

The Newcastle, U.K., city council has admitted that personal data and payment card details of up to 54,000 local residents has been downloaded from an insecure server to an IP address outside the country.

After Prime Minister Gordon Brown introduced new data sharing powers into his proposed program of legislation, U.K. opposition Members of Parliament have cautioned that the changes are not receiving adequate scrutiny. Fears about increasing levels of data sharing and surveillance have also been stoked by the news that the Home Office plans to hand data on millions of people's car journeys to police to use in anti-terrorism work - and possibly for wider crime fighting purposes.