I read with interest about the government’s vision to create a more user-friendly service to inform all state entities about new personal information.

The UK has had such a service for some time now. However, it started with death. Following a bereavement, there’s nothing worse than having to make endless calls to inform all entities of a person’s demise. Tell us Once eliminates this. The death is reported to the registrar of births, marriages and death who then advises all relevant government departments via a simple data feed. This covers many areas such as benefits, housing, tax, driving licence and passport office.

I respectfully suggest the government focuses on establishing this extremely useful service first, adding others in due course. Baby steps will achieve much quicker progress rather than trying to build an all-singing, all-dancing fully-integrated system from the outset.