Now in its fourth year the Challenge Project is a collaboration between the Data & Analytics and the University of Essex. Each year Essex County Council sets a research topic, aka ‘the challenge’, to some of the best social science undergraduates at the University.
Broadly speaking, evaluation is measuring the worth or value of something. This could be a programme of work, policy or service. There is no ‘magic formula’ to evaluation. We all make daily judgements about the worth or value of something; only evaluation requires greater critical thinking and a structured approach.
On 15th March, we attended the Greater London Authority’s Data Surgery for Civil Society organisations at City Hall.
Creating surveys which are meaningful and ask the right questions of the right people is not always an easy task. Our team regularly receive requests from colleagues asking for advice around survey design, and we thought it would be helpful to share some of our top tips with you.
Essex County Council uses an Insight and Innovation Market Research Framework to support the commissioning of good quality research. So, what is it and how does it work?
All the most successful teams throughout any line of work have a number of core elements for them to succeed and excel within a safe and challenging environment. But what are pieces of the puzzle that make teams great?
Many of us will be familiar with the core elements of ethics within data and research, but we need to go one step further and ask ourselves: why are we gathering the data? What purpose will it serve and what impact will it have? To avoid gathering insight in a tokenistic way, we need to be clear about the reasons behind why we are doing it.
A few weeks back members from the Data & Analytics and Research & Citizen insight team attended their first ever ‘data expedition’ which was hosted in partnership by the Greater London Authority & 360Giving.
Data and analytics have just finished a 7 day challenge using agile working approaches to think about new ways of supporting the current conversations around Adult Social Care demand and budgeting and to develop a new tool to facilitate these discussions.
Historically the word ‘consultation’ has put fear and anxiety into many a local authority around decision-making with residents in mind; however we now need to embrace this as an opportunity to have a two-way conversation where opinions are exchanged, considered and not ultimately dismissed.