A bit of background
Here at Capacity, we’ve been working with the CDC for some time.
Since 2020, we’ve worked in collaboration with the team to deliver Round ‘Ere – a project exploring what wellbeing means in Widnes – and ‘What’s Your Problem?’ – a programme aimed to get under the skin of the roles that SMEs and third sector organisations play when designing solutions for public services. ‘What’s Your Problem?’ is specifically designed to remove barriers between those involved in health, care and community product and service design, creating the space to find solutions that truly work.
To date, we’ve worked with CDC to drive forward 2 iterations of this programme, bringing together local businesses, frontline workers, voluntary organisations, and public sector leads to better understand the public sector’s biggest challenges and to think about how we can better design new products and services that meet them, together.
In late 2023, we partnered with CDC to deliver a third series of ‘What’s Your Problem?’, with the ambition of digging deeper into the gaps in data, skillsets, analytics tools and the potential ideas for stronger data sharing in the region. That’s where Greater Data began.
What we heard
As always, we wanted to bring together a range of voices from across the city region to understand more about the things that drive stronger, shared, useful intelligence. So, we set about engaging with public, third sector and private partners from across the Liverpool City Region. Based on our conversations, we heard that the foundations for better joined-up data in the region just aren’t there.
From siloed working, issues around governance and concerns about quality, it became clear that there are many barriers that prevent us from unlocking the power of data. We realised that before we could even begin to think about using data to improve public-service decision-making, we need to get the basics right first.
‘Just like the coral reef, this work is about creating an environment which supports people to thrive. Things will only work if we allow the light in, share our combined efforts and create the conditions we need for better, more effective services.‘
– Rachel Coldicutt, Careful Trouble
Introducing… Greater Data
Building a blueprint
Throughout our engagement, we heard that there was a shared desire for a blueprint, a list of ‘to-dos’ that would get us to stronger, shared ways of working. So, in 2024 we went away and pulled together our findings, distilling insights and identifying themes. We then built the bones of a plan for the region.
In early June, we brought our partners back together, spending the day workshopping the outline plan and sharing ideas. We asked, ‘is this hitting the mark?’, ‘have we missed anything?’ and ‘is anything under or over-played?’. Together we tweaked, added, removed and polished the final content.
The final result of all this work was the development of a blueprint, a solid plan which will drive us towards building a shared approach to collecting, sharing and using data to drive more effective decision-making across public services in the region. This plan aims to remove ‘system barriers’, refocusing ways of working to include local people – putting them at the heart of decision making and helping them play a part in unlocking the power of data. This joined-up approach will be built on trust and led by a network of people with shared ambitions.
To achieve this vision, our blueprint groups ‘work to be done’ into 5 key themes.
- Greater coordination: Building on our understanding of what is happening in the LCR data world, digging deeper into the enablers and barriers that will impact the vision, working out what we need to do to coordinate this work.
- Greater skillsets: Thinking about the skills we have and need in our communities and across our professional teams to maximise the impact of this work.
- Greater tools: Looking at the tools we use, including the key processes, job roles, systems and technology needed to make our vision a reality.
- Greater engagement: Thinking about engagement and how we actively involve people to share and deliver what’s set out in the blueprint.
- Greater reflection: Consistently reflecting on the implementation of the plan, allowing us to develop and improve this work.
So, what’s next?
This is just the start of our work with CDC on Greater Data. We’re expecting the impact of this work to come to fruition in 2025, when we’ll be testing the approach outlined in our blueprint, applying the framework to a live public service issue.
Interested in learning more? Get in touch with Sara – sara.chattun@thisiscapacity.co.uk
