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Improving Data Exchange between Local Authorities, Partners and the VCS

Central Bedfordshire Council ● Ed Garcez

London Borough of Camden ● Emma McGowan and Sudip Trivedi

Image Credit: Eucalyp

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The C19 challenge

This has been a fast changing context, with much outside of our control
We have needed to support new, often complex needs
We have needed a ‘system-wide’ and relational approach
We have needed to respect individual privacy while enabling shared insight and working
We have had to understand assets and strengths in our communities
Introducing new ways of working, and working together across boundaries, �a new model for meeting needs enabling Councils and their VCS partners to better reach groups and individuals

The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally challenged the way that we work together to support our communities and residents.
It has required us to respond more timely and efficiently … and to work with partners to achieve the best outcomes.
We have seen a surge in volunteering, and volunteers and communities across the country have come into their own -- looking after each other and keeping people safe.
The importance of knowing people, in order to support them as people, has never been more clear.
Our organisation boundaries and protocols have all presented challenges, and a number of obstacles have made it difficult for us to share information to establish a rounded view of people and their needs.
Our understanding of the assets and strengths of our communities and partners has also been varied, presenting a further obstacle to supporting people in the most direct and local way possible.
We need to nurture and support the VCS … and at the heart of our bid is an ambition to help councils and their VCS partners better reach groups and individuals and provide them with the support they need.
To achieve this we know that we need to

develop patterns, processes and prototypes for data exchange that are suitable and accessible regardless of technical resource and which support our ambition to enable a federated response
increase access to data across a range of different organisations with different levels of digital capability, capacity and maturity

We will be starting the project with user research and a wide- spread discovery phase, as well as learning from partnering organisations’ C19 experiences; so getting a rounded view.

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Building on work to date

Our bid looks to build on some of the challenges and opportunities . A key reflection through C19 challenge has been need for councils and VCS partners to work better together in order to meet needs of residents and communities
We will use and build on the work of others, and our outputs will be designed for others to do the same
We will look to understand the challenges to better data sharing and particularly look at issues facing the VCS and partners - this has to consider culture and process as well as governance, exchange mechanisms and technology
Through our work with partners we will seek to create a quick win prototype view of minimum sets of data that will allow us to see view of needs and map it against view of community strength (building on service directory style approach)

Exploring things like hub and spoke data platforms eg like the datastore �For example the work we’ve done with north central london boroughs on sharing health data - ways of working - camden led that group to work together
Secure and easy ways of creating sharing mechanisms
Identifying quickly common things; whether that’s data sets - agnostic to what this might be
Sharing data has long been a massive challenge across the public sector.
That has continued through our response to C19.
While we have seen real progress and better sharing of information across care and health, local authority and NHS, there is much more to be done.
We we be building on the work of others, eg the Information Sharing work that started in Greater Manchester, and refined by LOTI and the work to establish a single view of need worked on by Camden and Hackney, short-cutting some of the complexity and building on emerging standards and common approaches
We will understand the challenges and obstacles to better data sharing from across our geographies and the partners; working in them to consider how these can be addressed
As part of that work we will understand coverage -- the strengths and assets in our communities and mechanisms for keeping this insight and information fresh; an early deliverable from the project will be a mechanism for sharing place-centric strength data

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What we’ve heard our VCS partners say through C19

Help us anticipate changing needs so we can scale services accordingly
Desire to work together to understand who can help where and when
Don’t want to feel ‘handed off’
Interest in the council triaging need and then working with the VCS and partners to meet it
Help us understand the types of need coming through the various front doors
Don’t make us use your systems / all the sector hears about us systems and platforms not what we need
Flexibility and responsiveness in operating models
Want to support residents regardless of the ‘front door’ they come through
There is a lot more to do going forward and relationally there is a big opportunity

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Building on work to date

Some personal details are hidden until a request has been accepted

Detail about a request

Explore open requests

My to do list

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Building on work done to date

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Understanding needs and strengths

beacon

Food

Support

Financial

Support

Childcare

Support

Domestic Abuse Support

Medical Support

Physical & �Mental Wellness

Educational Support

Shelter Support

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Our agile and iterative plan to deliver

Discovery

Understanding challenges and obstacles, learning from each other
Exploring the problems to be solved, defining scope for the 8 weeks
Take a wide view that extends beyond data and technology

Design, develop and prototype

Addressing the obstacles, taking different perspectives
Up to three challenge areas to explore across changed ways of working, critical datasets and prototypes

Testing

Evaluating new ways of working, processes and solutions with partnering organisations
Getting user feedback and iterating designs

Lessons learned/ templatising

Creating reusable outputs to facilitate take-up by other Councils and organisations
Templatising outputs to ease adaptation and reuse

We will use LOTI’s outcomes-based methodology and take a hypothesis-led approach, ensuring focus on making a difference to vulnerable residents. All project phases will involve a multi-disciplinary team from the partnering organisations, including Information Governance leads to ensure that data sharing mechanisms are legal, ethical and secure by design.

Weeks 1-3: Discovery

Drawing on insights from the partnering organisations, this phase will explore the problems to be solved and define those to be addressed in the 8 week project. The problems are not merely about lack of an effective data exchange process, and the project will explore problems relating to conditions, data people, processes and technology.

Weeks 4-6: Design, develop and prototype

This phase will identify up to 3 challenge areas where changed ways of working or prototypes can be created. Those solutions could include:

identification of new collaborative ways of working (patterns and processes) across partner organisations (that are data-enabled)
identification of which critical datasets, need to be shared and for what purpose
development of data sharing processes and information governance arrangements

Weeks 6-7: Testing

Testing and evaluation of solutions created across the partnering organisations. Testing will involve a number of different approaches:

remote user experience testing refining and iterating prototypes getting feedback from users

Week 8: Lessons learned / templatising outputs

The final week of the project will focus on creating reusable outputs to facilitate take-up by other Councils and organisations:

description of mechanisms for data exchange
best practice guidelines
service patterns for up to 3 ways of working that are enabled by data
information governance products and an overview of what can and can’t legally and ethically be shared so that any data exchange process is equitable and mutually beneficial

We will make use of open standards and build on existing solutions.

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Our team

Discovery

Delivery manager
User researcher

Design, develop and prototype

Testing

Lessons learned/ templatising

Service designer
Analyst

Delivery manager
Service designer

Interaction designer
Developer

Delivery manager
Interaction designer

Developer
Data lead

Delivery manager
Content designer

Data lead

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Working in the open together, and sharing

We will be working in the open with partners, sharing as we go. All of our outputs will be open and we will build on open standards and existing solutions.
By working with a range of partner organisations and across a number of council we will look to understand ‘universal’ obstacles and challenges and so to define generic and reusable solutions.
We are working with, and will benefit from the support of LOTI who are experienced in templatising outputs so that they can be shared. A week at the end of the project will focus on ensuring this
We will also be look to work with partners to test further iteration and reuse.

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Measuring our success and impact

Building on existing work, and benefiting from a head start
Defining the problem in parts to ensure focus, and running parallel agile sprints across the partnering organisations to deliver at pace
Focusing on tangible outcomes that will make a real difference to people’s lives, and that will deliver concrete insight and learning that can be built on
Sharing a joint commitment to identifying our common problems and working together to solve them
In the stages:

Discovery the extent of partner engagement
Design the extent of reusability of patterns, processes and prototypes
Testing the involvement of and feedback from colleagues
Lessons learned/ templatising the extent to which we have worked in the open ... and ultimately how much our outputs are taken on and iterated

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notes beyond this

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Success and impact

From bid

Focus testing on specific journeys

Answer the specific data question?

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Working in the open and sharing

How outputs can be reused and shared

Significant point here around the range of partners so not just working in the open, working with and in the open

Build on LOTI experience of sharing and templatising and other points from bid

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Vision and current state

Through Covid-19 a key aspiration across Local authorities across country has been to develop / enable a federated response to support residents and needs through LA’s, VCS and other partners

A number of key success stories across the country around successful relationships and a key opportunity to build further as we looks at recovery and renewal

Reflections on key challenges through crisis – lack of effective, secure and easily accessible data exchange mechanism/processes, although good relationships developed we need better ways of working and practices

Challenges from VCS and partners perspective differ based on make-up, type of VCS organisation and whether already digitally enabled

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Scratch slide for notes

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Our Approach for the MHCLG bid

Building on the work done via LOTI information sharing as well as adopting the Outcomes methodology

Working with VCS organisations across London and Bedfordshire to start with discovery process – we are hoping this will help develop a set of design/service patterns that can be reused

Will be looking to develop data exchange mechanism and processes that can work with range of Local authorities, VCS and other partners (including a prototype that would build on existing work)

Building on open standards and work done to date through Covid-19 response in terms of progress towards developing a ‘single view of need’ (e.g. Camden, Hackney)

Outputs from the bid to include:

Best practice guidelines and description of data exchange mechanisms

Service patterns for up to 3 ways of working

Information governance – product as well as insights on what can, can’t be shared from legal, ethical and access perspectives

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Timeline

Weeks 1-3: Discovery

Drawing on insights from the partnering organisations, this phase will explore the problems to be solved and define those to be addressed in the 8 week project. The problems are not merely about lack of an effective data exchange process, and the project will explore problems relating to conditions, data people, processes and technology.

Weeks 4-6: Design, develop and prototype

This phase will identify up to 3 challenge areas where changed ways of working or prototypes can be created. Those solutions could include:

identification of new collaborative ways of working (patterns and processes) across partner organisations (that are data-enabled)

identification of which critical datasets, need to be shared and for what purpose

development of data sharing processes and information governance arrangements

Weeks 6-7: Testing

Testing and evaluation of solutions created across the partnering organisations. Testing will involve a number of different approaches:

remote user experience testing

refining and iterating prototypes

getting feedback from users

Week 8: Lessons learned / templatising outputs

The final week of the project will focus on creating reusable outputs to facilitate take-up by other Councils and organisations:

description of mechanisms for data exchange

best practice guidelines

service patterns for up to 3 ways of working that are enabled by data

information governance products and an overview of what can and can’t legally and ethically be shared so that any data exchange process is equitable and mutually beneficial

We will look to adopt open standards and aim to build from existing solutions

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Opportunities and next steps

Opportunity for us to collaborate across London building on data sets we have and exchange mechanisms that could be built on (e.g. use of data store as a way for la’s and vcs partners to share data securely)

Thanks to LOTI a number of complementary ideas/bids been worked on in parallel – e.g. Newham work looking at inner borough data share, a number of other ideas looking at debt prioritisation and use of data

Work done around service patterns and IG could enable future work in this area and we hope can be reused, built further upon – one of the outputs will be a info sharing agreement based on common requirements for la’s and vcs in London and beyond

Although timescales on the work around the bid limited and tight – there is a wider opportunity for us to understand what would work across a range of VCS, other partner organisations and local authorities in terms of – common data sets, mechanisms of exchange and creating ways of working that will help us achieve federated response

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The plan for delivery

The stuff from the bid

Need to emphasise agile, learning approach / working together with wide range of partners / leading with discovery, prioritisation / focus on producing outputs (we’ll cover templatising etc. in a couple of slides time)

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Team and roles

It may be better to link this to the plan slide? Regardless same key information as in bid

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A new model for meeting needs

This will elaborate on and pick up the need to work more widely than just the council/ health etc. > so this could be where we weave in the VCS dynamic
and set out some of the early Beacon challenges as well as some of the LRF Information Governance and Information Sharing etc.
Needs to close highlighting how a sustainable, scalable and repeatable approach that becomes best practice meets the C19 need here, now (incl. for the lingering pandemic/ next wave) as well as for what may come again

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Things that we need to cover

FYI green background means notes

what specific data will be shared or reported on between councils and VCS -- Note we know this area pretty well because of the shielding work so don’t over promise - ie find the sweet spot of what’s possible in 2 months yet impactful

● project relevance to COVID-19

● the plan for delivery

● team and roles

● how outputs can be reused by other councils

● success and impact

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The C19 challenge

Complex, individual and personal needs
A surge in the need for support in a period of significant change for all
The importance of working together, and of taking a more ‘system-wide’ approach
We need to understand people’s unique and personal needs, so that we can support �them most effectively
We need to respect their privacy while enabling shared insight and better working �together
We need to understand the assets and strengths of, and in, our communities
We need to build on, introduce and develop new ways of working, and new mechanics �for working together across boundaries
We need to be able to align needs and strengths to provide the right support in the right way

The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally challenged the way that we work together to support our communities and residents. It has required us to respond efficiently in a timely fashion and to work with partners to achieve the best outcomes.
The importance of knowing people, in order to support them as people, has never been more clear. Our organisation boundaries and protocols have all presented challenges, and a number of obstacles have made it difficult for us to share information to establish a rounded view of people and their needs.
Our understanding of the assets and strengths of our communities and partners has also been varied, presenting a further obstacle to supporting people in the most direct and local way possible.

The pandemic has underlined the importance of knowing our residents in order to best support them. A number of obstacles (real and perceived) made it difficult to establish a rounded view of resident need based on insight from the Council, health and other partners. At the same time, local and community responses have enabled a much greater reach and more personal response to those in need.

Work across some of the London boroughs has built on work in Greater Manchester to establish an approach to information sharing that is more simple and standard. This work is a key enabler to this bid. Building on the learning on hub-and-spoke data infrastructure will also be key.

Camden and Hackney’s work to develop a platform to bring together datasets and establish a single view of need (Beacon) also underpins this bid and provides a framework for better insight and closer collaboration across stakeholders.

Work across Bedfordshire, involving the Councils and Local Resilience Forum partners, has worked to understand the challenges to better data sharing, including accessibility, quality, and other barriers.

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A new model for meeting needs

This will elaborate on and pick up the need to work more widely than just the council/ health etc. > so this could be where we weave in the VCS dynamic

and set out some of the early Beacon challenges as well as some of the LRF Information Governance and Information Sharing etc.

Needs to close highlighting how a sustainable, scalable and repeatable approach that becomes best practice meets the C19 need here, now (incl. for the lingering pandemic/ next wave) as well as for what may come again