Terms of Reference: Data Design Authority (DDA)

The DDA is the authority responsible for governing the design of data for health and social care in England.

It establishes the design principles, patterns, and standards used to inform the development and assurance of all data products and specifications.

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The DDA's primary purpose is to govern the design of data for health and social care in England. It is responsible for establishing design principles, patterns, and standards in alignment with the 10-year plan and future strategic plans.

The DDA ensures that data is treated as a strategic asset and that design principles are approachable, useable, and avoid the introduction of the risk of harm.

Key responsibilities

The DDA's responsibilities involve setting direction, establishing resources, and assuring alignment:

• Guidance and alignment: Serve as a central reference point for data to other governance boards and technical committees, providing guidance and ensuring alignment across organisational data strategies, tools, and platforms.

• Standards and principles: Establish, oversee, and ratify the dissemination of data designs, standards, and principles, promoting their consistent application across the NHS and the wider health and care estate.

• Design expertise: Provide expert advice, authority, and development on data design principles, patterns, and standards that guide data management, integration, and use (including master and reference data).

• Work packages: Recommend the establishment of work packages to address gaps in key data management areas (for example, data quality, metadata, canonical data models).

• Oversight: Review and assess the progress of the Data Architecture Review Panel (DARP) and other data profession working groups, providing direction and approving outputs where appropriate.

• A set of data artefacts, including data principles and standards, which serve as a reference point to all other authorities, review, and design committees for health and social care programmes.

• Developed frameworks and strategy for the management of data and the data architecture profession for consideration by strategic authorities.

Evaluation of success

The DDA's success is measured by improvements across the data landscape, including:

• rationalisation of data management tooling across the NHS,
• simplification of data journeys for main data flows,
• embedding common architecture blocks across the NHS in new and legacy projects,
• reduction in data effort at the point of entry,
• and increased volume and rationalisation of approved data patterns.

Meeting logistics

Frequency: Monthly, with provision for short meetings fortnightly when required.

• Time Allocation: 90 minutes per session.

Membership and attendees

• Chair: Chief Data Architect
• Secretariat: Provided by the Data Governance, Assurance and Testing (DGAT) team.

Members are expected to be experienced in data architecture, data engineering, data modelling, and related fields including technical experts and Data Governance/compliance specialists from across the health and social care data landscape.

Quorum: For a meeting to be quorate, 50% of the core members should be in attendance (subject to discussion/confirmation).

Conduct: Members must be aware of the sensitivity of content presented and declare any conflicts of interest.