NEW SOFTWARE which can tell a person's social, cultural and ethnic status from their surname is being offered to local authorities to help them deliver services more effectively.

The Mosaic Origins classification system has been developed by credit reference company Experian, which has created a database of more than 1.5 million surnames and 500,000 first names from all over the world.

They hope the system, which costs £4000 for one year, can be used to target resources for public services and businesses.

Professor Richard Webber of University College London, who created the software, said: "Why this is useful, particularly to local authorities, is that they have to make attempts to ensure their services are used by all the different communities living in their area.

"For example if they have diabetes screening centres or libraries they don't know if there are communities who never use these services. What they can now do is buy this software and put through all the names of their service users and identify the numbers belonging to different communities."

The system is thought to be the most detailed of its kind as it goes beyond the data collected on censuses or self-reporting data collection. It can identify a person's name as originating from Ireland or India, for example, and can then determine whether you are likely to be Muslim, Sikh or Catholic.

Webber said they were able to classify the social class of names by looking at people's geographical location.

He said: "In the UK most surnames are not really linked with social class, but if you take an Asian name like Patel you find they live in much more middle class areas than other Indian names.

"In Scotland you have Indians more from the east of India who are well educated and most likely to be doctors and professionals and live in neighbourhoods where there are more white people."

Webber said the same analysis was more difficult with British surnames, and that first names were more telling of a person's social class with people called Philip generally being better off than those called Wayne.