What data does Scotland collect and analyse that directly and indirectly impacts the lives of children and their families, and how can we best map it?
Background & Detail:
On 5 February 2020, the Care Review published seven reports, with ‘The Promise’ narrating a vision for Scotland, built on five foundations. ‘The Promise’ outlines an approach to family and to care that will mean that Scotland can truly be ‘the best place in the world to grow up.’
A key challenge facing Scotland in facilitating and supporting the necessary change lies in its data landscape, with the vast majority of organisations and bodies who engaged with the Care Review citing challenges with data collection, access and sharing as barriers to service delivery. In addition, the current data systems are not capable of supporting progressive transformational change.
This work aims to build a cohesive central picture of all data on the processes and systems that directly and indirectly impact on children and their families, including but not limited to data on housing, poverty, education, employment, social work, health etc. The resource it creates must be useable to inform the work required to reform Scotland’s data collection and analysis in relation to children and their families both now and in the future.
Desired Outcome:
A sustainable and accessible map of all data that impacts directly or indirectly on children and their families currently collected across Scotland. Granular detail on each data source will be required and this may differ depending on the source itself. The purpose of the map is to drive forward the work to reform the data landscape and align it to measuring and monitoring what matters to children and their families.
Skill Sets:
Below are the broad skill sets needed to meet this challenge. It is likely that there may be additional skills required. We encourage applicants to propose capabilities that may lie out with the work packages below, as these will also be considered when forming a collaboration.
Those who know what matters to children and their families
The team addressing this challenge question will need a strong understanding of the needs of children and their families and the different areas of their lives these present in. Understanding the challenges faced by children and their families is essential to determining the scope of data relevance as data is navigated.
Data organisation, collection and storage
This challenge is primarily a data audit – what data does Scotland collect, what does that look like, how is it stored and how is it used - therefore skills in navigating and managing local and national datasets, including familiarity with the data and information landscape on children, families and all the things that impact on their lives, must be present within the team tasked with building the map. Quite often, these skills lie with the people who hold responsibility for collecting and storing (not necessarily analysing) the data.
Data engineering, data analytics & data science
Data value is often benched against the current analytical use of that data, rather than the potential (but often not yet deployed) analysis that could be undertaken on the dataset. Strong skillsets in data engineering, analytics and data science will be required in the team to ensure this work is able to critically examine the analysis as well as the collection of Scotland’s data, identifying value based on analytical potential as well as analytical use.
UX design
A key aspect of this challenge is the accessibility of outputs, and the longevity of use beyond the project lifecycle. It is anticipated that the outputs will be used by an extensive audience of public, private and third sector organisations. As such, the accessibility of project outcomes is key to the usability, sustainability, and success of the challenge.
Child & family systems and data infrastructure
The team addressing this challenge question will need a strong understanding of the existing systems and data that are in place to support children and their families and the different areas of their lives these present in. Providing background context and direction to the rest of the team is essential to determining the scope of data relevance as data is navigated.
Funding Availability:
For this challenge question, The Data for Children Collaborative can fund project partners a portion of up to £80,000. The funding available to individual organisations will be dependent on the agreed contribution to the project once the collaboration has been formed and delivery plan approved.
We welcome applications from all sectors (private / public / third / academia) and encourage submissions from any team looking to do any in kind Data for Good work to develop their expertise.
If possible, we encourage private sector partners to provide time pro-bono. Funding is available at 70% of total contribution with 30% match funded through in-kind contributions.
This is an experimental development project and VAT will not apply to any agreed funding.
Academic partners will receive 80% FEC.
Timescales & Deliverability:
We would aim for the collaboration to begin work on a project by 24th May 2021. We envisage that a project addressing this challenge question should take approximately 12 months.
The deadline for submissions is 12th April 2021 with the first collaboration workshop taking place week commencing 19th April 2021.