Coronavirus: Downing Street blames councils for failure to receive key outbreak information

Town hall bosses failing to return data privacy paperwork, says Boris Johnson's spokesman

A furious row has broken out between central and local government, after Downing Street has blamed the failure to provide town halls with details on coronavirus outbreaks in their areas on the councils themselves.

Boris Johnson's official spokesman said councils such as Rochdale had not received the data because they failed to do the paperwork. But the Greater Manchester borough hit back, saying it had been asking for the information for weeks and data privacy forms finally sent out by Public Health England were "not fit for purpose".

A series of local authority leaders have come forward in recent days to complain that they are not being provided with postcode-level data held by central authorities which would help them stave off a flare-up of the kind which has forced the return of lockdown in Leicester.

Rochdale borough council, which has one of the highest levels of new infections in England, said it had not received any community testing results - known as “pillar two” - with council leader Steve Rumbelow warning it was essential “to ensure that Rochdale does not get to where Leicester is now”.

But Boris Johnson’s official spokesman pointed the finger of blame at the councils themselves, saying many - including Rochdale - had failed to complete paperwork required under data privacy rules.

The PM’s spokesman said: “Since June 11, an operational data dashboard has been made available for all local authorities to give them a clear picture in their local areas, and this included the counts of total tests, total positive and a rolling average for pillar two.

“Last week we started securely sharing postcode-level and individual case testing data with all local authorities – that’s available to them at any time.

“I think there has been an issue with councils not returning data agreements to Public Health England. I think that is the case with one of the councils which has featured in the media this morning, Rochdale.

“All of the data made available has been distributed at the highest level that information governance rules will allow. Local authorities receive both upper and lower-tier local authority level data regularly, and identifiable data when there is an outbreak.

“Making more detailed data widely available does run the risk of revealing patient identifiable information, therefore it is only shared with local authorities who have data sharing agreements in place to protect the confidentiality of the data. I think that’s what the public would expect.”

He added: “Public Health England have sent the agreement to Rochdale Council twice and not had it back yet.”

A spokesman for Rochdale Borough Council responded: “We are pleased that the pressure being applied to government by local authorities has finally resulted in this vital information being provided, although there are still question marks over the quality of the data.

"Despite the fact that councils have been requesting pillar two data for weeks, a data processing agreement was only sent to us last week. It was not signed because it was not fit for purpose. We fed back our concerns, which were accepted, and a new version was received on Tuesday this week and agreed this morning.”

Local government minister Simon Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning that the government “started sharing securely postcode level testing data with all local authorities, including Leicester” last week.

Pillar two test result data is provided by commercial testing companies to PHE, which shares some elements of it with locally based health protection teams that work with councils and directors of public health.

But the Conservative former chairman of the Local Government Association, Lord Porter, said he had been “refused access” to some Covid-19 testing data from private providers.

Lord Porter, who is the leader of South Holland District Council in Lincolnshire, tweeted: “For the avoidance of doubt councils are not getting sight of either super output data or pillar two data. I’ve been asking for all data for South Holland after I realised they were keeping separate sets. I’ve seen one lot of pillar two data and have been refused access to it since.”

Sarah Norman, chief executive of Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, which has one of the highest infection rates in the country, told the Today programme her authority only received data by postcode yesterday.