At the ODI, we believe that positive impact comes from creating an open and trustworthy data ecosystem.
Cities and local authorities are responsible for enabling positive social and economic change in their local environments, by providing essential services for citizens, such as waste collection, education, housing and planning support. All these services and many more use and collect data.
Increasingly data is an integral element to decision making. Identifying what data a city or local authority has and what data they need can be difficult. But taking the time to map and understand data flow across the complex ecosystem of internal departments and external stakeholders is vital if a city is going to use data to make well informed decisions for people, business and the city itself.
How can we help?
We believe that it’s important to support cities and local government to make better use of data in two vital ways:
- To create more public services that have data embedded in their design
- To enable better decision making by working more collaboratively with representatives across the city to understand what data the city has, and what it needs
As part of our R&D programme, funded by Innovate UK, we have developed a range of tools, guidance and practical workshops to help local and city authorities to start thinking about making better use of data in their projects and services.
How we support data use in the public sector
Workshop: Getting started with the data and public services toolkit
Public services are an important mechanism for creating positive impact. In this workshop, we work with you to build a strong business case for your proposed service.
Learn more about the 'Getting started with the data and public services toolkit' workshop
Workshop: Open Cities
Using ecosystem mapping, data ethics discovery and business case development the Open Cities workshop enables a city to identify and make better use of data.
Learn more about the Open Cities workshop
The Data and Public Services Toolkit
Over the past three years, we have worked with the UK public sector to develop the Data and Public Services Toolkit.
The Data and Public Services Toolkit is a set of free, collaborative, non-technical tools which aim to help people designing public services identify what data is available, what it can be used for, and how to do that well.
It includes:
- over 20 case studies of different types of data-enabled services
- a business case canvas to help get senior buy-in for using data in your project or service
- a guide for mapping your data ecosystem
- the Data Ethics Canvas which helps you use data more ethically
- a checklist of things to consider when designing a data-enabled service to help it scale
All these resources are freely available, under an open licence, here.
Free Data-enabled Services webinar
Why not start learning now by watching our free on-demand webinar. Our Using data in the Public Sector webinar answers where data can make the most impact on public services, when to use the Data Ethics Canvas and much more.