To ask the Minister of Finance what barriers exist to permit data sharing between Industrial Injuries Benefit and Civil Service Pensions for the purpose of assessing Permanent Injury Awards.

The Department for Communities (DfC) has provided the following response: From an Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) perspective, DfC are unaware of any barriers. The IIDB branch receive requests from Civil Service pensions to confirm rates of IIDB in payment. These are received with signed authority from the claimant, giving permission to share the information. Industrial Injuries branch supply the requested rates in writing.

For the purposes of assessing Permanent Injury Awards, Civil Service Pensions, Department of Finance (DoF), obtains explicit consent, signed authority, from the claimant of a Permanent Injury Award to contact the relevant benefit Branch(es), including IIDB branch, for confirmation of any entitlement to specified benefits. This signed consent permits data sharing between IIDB branch and Civil Service Pensions.

There are no statutory powers in place to permit DfC or DoF to take forward secondary legislation to permit the sharing of information without explicit consent. Therefore, it would have to be pursued using primary legislation.