If you’re interested in attending the safeguarding LINC diogelu, Stakeholder Briefing on the 8th July at 12 noon, or for any further information or discussion, please contact Catherine Evans Cathevans@carmarthenshire.gov.uk
The WLGA is continuing to support the development of the Safeguarding LINC project, a multi-agency safeguarding data initiative that creates a secure, single view of the child to support better and safer decision-making within social care and across partners.
Overview and Strategic Context
LINC is a secure, multi-agency data-linking model initially focused on vulnerable children (up to 18), in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. It is designed to respond directly to repeated Child Practice Review findings about poor information sharing and fragmented data across agencies.
The project is a regional partnership involving Carmarthenshire County Council, Pembrokeshire County Council, Dyfed‑Powys Police and Hywel Dda University Health Board, sponsored by the Mid and West Wales Regional Safeguarding Board, and supported by Swansea University for technical hosting and data linkage, and Cardiff University for independent evaluation and AI exploration.
The intent is to create a scalable, model that other local authorities and partners can adopt, subject to national alignment and governance decisions.
2. Purpose of the LINC Model
The core purpose of LINC is to:
- Bring together safeguarding-relevant data across agencies in a secure, controlled environment.
- Provide practitioners with a holistic, up-to-date view of a child’s contacts and circumstances.
- Support timely, well-informed safeguarding decisions at key points of contact (e.g. front door, police attendance, A&E).
- Enable earlier identification of emerging risks and patterns that would not be visible within single-agency datasets.
- Help embed a culture and expectation of appropriate information sharing for safeguarding, within clear information governance guardrails.
Initially, LINC provides reactive access for authorised practitioners to check and explore safeguarding information. Future development aims to introduce proactive alerts where appropriate, to flag emerging patterns of concern.
Technical Solution – Dashboard and User Experience
The solution is delivered through a Power BI dashboard interface, designed and refined in close collaboration with frontline practitioners.
Key features include:
- Single view of a child: Summary of key identifiers and safeguarding status (e.g. Child Protection Register, looked-after status, allocated social work team, NHS number, police reference).
- Multi-agency contact history: Visual timeline of interactions with social care, police and health (including types of contact such as arrests, inpatient/outpatient visits, Emergency Department visits and missed appointments).
- Visual coding and drill-down: Colour coding by agency (e.g. police, social services, health).
- Address and household view: Ability to compare and validate addresses across systems, view relationships and other family/household members linked to the child.
- Operational contact details: Planned inclusion of key duty contact information (social care, police, health) to facilitate rapid practitioner-to-practitioner follow-up.
Access to the dashboard will be restricted to named professionals only, authorised by organisational safeguarding leads, and accessed via Swansea’s secure platform.
Information Governance and Data Sharing
A substantial proportion of project effort has focused on information governance and data sharing, reflecting sector-wide challenges in this area. Achievements to date include:
- Four completed and signed-off Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs).
- Joint controller agreements between key partners (local authorities, health, police).
This work has required detailed negotiation due to differing statutory duties and governance frameworks across health, police and local government. It has, however, created a robust foundation for future scaling and has been seen by partners as a major achievement in its own right.
Current Use Cases and Operational Benefits
Initial deployment will focus on concrete operational use cases identified with practitioners.
As more sites and partners onboard, the expectation is that the value will increase significantly, particularly where cross-boundary or multi-authority patterns can be observed.
Future Direction – AI and Wider Applications
LINC has been designed from the outset to be scalable and extensible:
- AI and predictive analytics:
- The programme is working with Cardiff University (SCaLE) to undertake an independent evaluation of the prototype and to explore how AI and advanced analytics could be used to identify trends, clustering and emerging risk earlier, within appropriate ethical and governance frameworks.
- Extension to other cohorts and functions:
- Although the initial focus is vulnerable children, there is clear interest in extending the model to:
- Vulnerable adults
- Wider health and care integration, aligned with Connecting Care.
Funding, Sustainability and National Alignment
To date, prototype development has been supported via the WLGA DISC framework.
If you’re interested in attending the safeguarding LINC diogelu, Stakeholder Briefing on the 8th July at 12 noon, or for any further information or discussion, please contact Catherine Evans Cathevans@carmarthenshire.gov.uk