How well does your council use data for decision-making?

The LGA is looking for councils to partner with us to trial the use of a data maturity self-assessment tool. We would welcome councils at any stage of maturity from the data unaware to data masters. The results will enable you to assess where you are on your data journey and plan the next steps of your evolution. You will also be able to compare yourself across different functional areas and against other councils. The findings will encourage conversation on the data needs of councils and how we can work collectively to raise standards and to improve cultural and work practices.

More details and how to register your council’s interest is available online here.

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Are you part of cleaning, catering, or housekeeping staff in care homes and would you like to share your experiences? Or are you a care home manager or in charge of Human Resources in a care home and have experiences with the ancillary workforce? Please contact Olivia by email olivia.luijnenburg@kcl.ac.uk or telephone 07927 512916. To thank you for your time, we will send you a £20 voucher.

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With 10 of us attending via Teams, it was good to catch up! Louise Reeve (LARIA North East Organiser) led with a presentation on ‘The Census: What’s New, and What’s In It for You?’, describing how ONS plan to increase digital participation in Census to 75% in 2021, and get the data outputs to users in a way that works best for them. We discussed both plans for the Census, and issues that members were facing and expect to face in future, such as:

• For some attendees, the challenge of successfully carrying out their regular role whilst at the same time completing a Data Analyist Apprenticeship – and whether local authorities have fully embraced data science and what it can offer us.
• The extent to which local authorities are able to do ‘in-depth’ or ‘proactive’ research, rather than reactive research.
• How we will manage workloads in 2021 when tasks that were put on hold during the pandemic have to be caught up with.
• The difficulties of keeping up with what’s happening when no-one’s in the office – and how we’re looking forward to hopefully getting back into it in 2021.
• The logistical difficulties of the upcoming vaccination programme.
• The opportunities offered by Census 2021, particularly for those of us managing data platforms such as Durham Insight.

Despite the challenges, all agreed it was good to catch up. We’ll have another event soon!

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You can read the full blog on the Cambridge Econometrics website.

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The profiles are available here; the profiles use the same data as in an England-wide briefing, see here. 

If you would like to be updated on future resources please email Chris Lloyd on c.lloyd@qub.ac.uk. 

Chris would also appreciate feedback on the profiles – if they are useful it would be very helpful to have a brief note on how they have been used. The PopChange project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

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The local authority report gives a quick view of cases for a selected council and comparison group.

The England overview gives data for all councils in England including the top ten councils.

The weekly deaths report gives a summary of ONS weekly deaths data.

The care homes report focuses on deaths in care homes in particular.

The vulnerable groups report gives estimates of local population sizes likely to be vulnerable to COVID-19.

The area characteristics report compares case rates to other factors at a local area level, such as deprivation.

We hope you find them useful, and please feel free to pass any feedback to coronavirus.enquiries@local.gov.uk.

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But how do you best identify these residents? How do you communicate and engage with them? And how should you prioritise and deliver services to meet their needs?

CACI has developed our Vulnerability Indicators to help central and local government, public health, emergency services and the wider public sector to better identify at-risk and vulnerable groups in communities. Insight like this is an essential factor when assessing demand to support decision-making associated with the delivery of services, this in turn helps to improve outcomes and support Social Responsibility.

For further information, click the following link: https://bit.ly/3hbaKbt

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Intelligent Council

Readers may remember the work that the LGA commissioned with LARIA a while ago, to pull together a range of resources related to an ‘Intelligent Council’.  The LGA has now created a new online hub, called the Transformation and Innovation Exchange, which brings practical help for local government about transformation, innovation and efficiency into one place. Under the heading ‘Use of data and intelligence’, it includes all the resources we identified in the ‘Intelligent Council’ work, including blogs, case studies, reports, tools, and training.

You can see them all here.  However, the hub will only remain useful if we continue to maintain it.  Take a look today to see what’s there already, and then consider adding other resources you have found useful to share with others: simply sign in (using your Knowledge Hub or LG Inform details, or register) to upload your own resources, or to endorse and comment on those already there.

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2020 is already a very different year. I don’t think anyone could have estimated the scale and impact that coronavirus would have on every aspect of our lives, families, friends and colleagues. LARIA too is having to deal with changing its plans and trying to navigate our way through the uncertain times ahead.

LARIA remains a membership organisation – run by volunteer members for the benefit of all its members. Our challenge is to continue to provide the networking and learning opportunities, support and information that we know our members value, whilst being able to survive financially.

Our two main sources of income are our events and our membership fees. These income streams go towards the costs of hosting and delivering our face-to-face events, managing our membership, and communicating with our members through emails and our website. This operating model has been in place for many years.

LARIA Council members, who are responsible for running LARIA, along with LARIA trustees were already discussing LARIA’s operating model prior to the pandemic. We held an away day to work through the options we have, with the aim of making a decision. The timing of this meeting was just before the UK went into lockdown.

The current and short-term future situation has brought into sharp focus the risks and potential opportunities we have in operating. These are critical times for LARIA and we want to make the best decisions we can, so that LARIA can continue to provide for its members, whilst being able to continue to exist.

We have deferred our annual conference from June to mid-October due to the pandemic. But even that date is still under review by LARIA Council in order that we safeguard the safety of our delegates, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors. A final decision on the conference will be made in the council meeting held after the AGM.

LARIA operations

My sincere thanks to Tony Bovaird, who has stepped down this year as a trustees. Tony has been part of LARIA since its inception in 1974. He has provided many ideas, content, presentations and some challenge over the years, all delivered with immense insight, personality and wit. I and LARIA wish Tony all the very best.

Our trustees’ meetings, held in the autumn each year, continue to hold LARIA Council to account, and they support LARIA’s strategic direction. I thank the trustees for their continued backing and thank Andy for his input into those meetings.

As agreed last year, for the chairing of LARIA we have put in place the cycle of vice-chair designate, to vice-chair, to chair, each holding that position for two years. The election of a vice-chair designate will happen this year and I will step down as chair at the AGM in 2021.

LARIA activities

Our communications group has met virtually a number of times over the last 12 months. Some of the planned communication work would have been put in place for our June conference. That and other planned communication work have been put on hold, whilst we finalise our operating model and decide on the annual conference. Thank you to Juliet, Kate and Duncan for their work on communications.

Our partnership with CACI continues to work well. I thank CACI for its continued support and for the publications and blogs that it has produced. We do need other partnerships to join us, and this is an ongoing action for LARIA Council.

LARIA has been working with our Social Services Research Group (SSRG) in LARIA to determine the best way forward for SSRG. We have agreed that the current Research, Policy and Practice publication will be the last. We are working to find a suitable home to host the wealth of content that has been produced over the years.

Local LARIA

Some of our local LARIA groups have been very active, hosting events and providing regular communications to LARIA members in their regions. However, we still have patchy coverage across the UK, with a number of areas either not represented or not active.

Priority

Developing and agreeing LARIA’s operating model is the fundamental piece of work for LARIA Council to complete with the support of the LARIA trustees. We are committed to make sure that LARIA reaches its 50^th birthday in 2024, and that it is able to celebrate this in style with a bright future ahead of it.

Mike Walker
LARIA Chair
May 2020

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