How the University of Veracruz used data visualisation to help develop the state’s Observatory on Food Security and Nutrition

Background

The University of Veracruz was established in 1944 and is considered the state’s premier institution of higher education. The university now has a presence in five university regions and 28 municipalities. The university works with many national and state-level organisations that are seeking to improve the lives of people living in Veracruz.

The Faculty of Nutrition, Xalapa, which belongs to the Universidad Veracruzana, works in partnership with other agencies and hosts the Centre for Food Security and Nutrition State of Veracruz (OBSAN). The Observatory’s mission is is to provide a platform that provides information on food security and nutrition in the State of Veracruz and to contributes to decision-making and policy development.

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How Wolverhampton’s Local Information System is driving consistency of data use and helping deliver evidence-based strategic planning

Background

The Corporate Strategy and Improvement Unit at Wolverhampton City Council provides statistics, information, research and intelligence for decision making and is responsible for demographic data held by the council.

Debbie Turner, Policy Officer (Research & Information) in the Unit, says the decision to develop a Local information System (LIS) came from a recognition that data wasn’t being used effectively and that there was a great deal of duplication of effort when it came to local intelligence.

“We were getting a lot of requests for the same information, often from the people working together on the same projects or in the same service while at the same time we knew there was good work going on in pockets across the council and other organisations,” she says. “We also spent a lot of our time co-ordinating data collection from a range of services for people within the council or for partner organisations.”

Debbie says one of their key aims was to improve information management and to ensure that the most up-to-date data, from the right sources was being used. The Unit started to develop a business case for an LIS and created a project group consisting of key strategic partners from across the city. The business case was signed off in September 2010 and the Unit set about a tender process. After assessing three bids InstantAtlas was awarded the contract.

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Helping local communities in Trafford represent themselves and highlight their needs using an online interactive data hub

Background

Trafford Council has been an advocate of open data since May 2010 when the council took the decision to create an open data page on its website to allow access to numerous data it collects. This includes: council tax, business rates, location data, such as for schools and leisure centres and election results.

However, it wanted to use the data more effectively to create an intelligence resource. With NESTA funding and support from a steering group which included other Greater Manchester local authorities it embarked on an initiative called DataGM – a platform that would allow data sharing across Greater Manchester.

Alongside its work with DataGM, Trafford also wanted to develop its own data sharing initiative and went out to tender for a solution that would enable it to develop what it saw as a data observatory for Trafford.

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East Riding Data Observatory – Supporting the localism agenda in the East Riding of Yorkshire through a data presentation initiative

Background

The East Riding Observatory is an online resource that provides easy access to population, economic, community safety, health and education data for local authorities, partner agencies and communities across the East Riding of Yorkshire. The East Riding Data Observatory is a member of the Humber Data Observatory Group. Other Observatories in this group are: North Lincolnshire Council, North East Lincolnshire and Kingston upon Hull.

Gareth Hughes is senior research officer at the Observatory. He explains that Regional Improvement and Efficiencies Partnership (RIEP) funding was made available and Humber Data Observatory Group members were asked to highlight areas for investment.

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IPPR – How a UK think tank is using data presentation turn a project on the needs of older people in London into a useful resource

Background

IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK’s leading progressive think tank, producing rigorous research and innovative policy ideas. IPPR publishes more than 50 reports each year and it uses its website as a hub for progressive thinking.

Getting started

One of its recent projects was supported by the City Bridge Trust – a charity that supports charitable activity benefitting Greater London. The project culminated in a report Older Londoners that highlighted the urgent need to tackle social isolation among the oldest members in society. It found that the number of people in London aged over-65 is expected to rise by a third in the next 20 years and those aged over 90, by 95 per cent.

Senior research fellow Kayte Lawton says: “It was a project looking at ageing and growing problems faced by the over-80s. This is a group of people who are often classed with the over-65s but we wanted to differentiate the needs of this older group. They often have greater social care and health needs.”

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Poole Partnership | ‘Providing an information resource to help commissioners of childrens’ services address local priorities’

Background

Poole Partnership is the Local Strategic Partnership for Poole. It involves community, voluntary and faith groups, working together with businesses and the public sector. It  aims to achieve long-term improvements to the quality of life for people living in Poole.

We spoke to Sara Ireland, Senior Research Officer, about the project. “It originated from work with a children and young people’s dataset that we had been working on for a number of years. We realised we were sitting on a large amount of information and were only able to do a limited amount with it – so we wanted to find a way of getting it into the public domain in a friendly format,” she says.

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Image Credit – Jim Linwood

How data presentation is helping the Mexico Data Observatory get local information into the hands of a wide range of individuals

Background

Mexico’s Data Observatory works alongside the local government, organisations representing citizen’s interests and universities. One of its aims is to communicate data in such a way that it can be understood not only by experts but by the whole population. It had previously been using PDFs to present data but decided it needed to investigate other ways of doing this.

Salomon Gonzalez Arellano is Professor Investigator at the Observatory and faculty member of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana says that one of the drivers for them was to make the data accessible by a wide range of individuals – even to teenagers needing insight for their homework.

“We felt that we didn’t need a typical map server because that would require a large investment and not everyone would be able to use it,” he says. “We decided to look for another way to communicate our work.”

Getting started

The Observatory first came across InstantAtlas in 2005 through a design agency that was interested in geographical information systems (GIS). However, it was several years before the Observatory was given funding.

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CACI UK | Giving large retailers detailed insight to help them find the right location and promote their stores effectively

Background

CACI offers a range of marketing solutions and information systems to local and central government and to businesses from most industry sectors. Its location planning experts provide advice in a number of areas from retail development opportunities, shopping centre asset management and town centre regeneration to catchment areas and consumer segmentation.

Steve Halsall is a consulting partner at CACI and heads up the Property Consulting Group (PCG). He has been with CACI for two years and was brought in to help evolve its well-established offer in this area. His team works across the public sector and commercial sector (including shopping centre owners, investors, developers and agents) providing advice on retail or leisure-led developments.

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OCSI Data packs put more insight into Nottingham

Nottingham’s Local Information System ‘Nottingham Insight’ (http://www.nottinghaminsight.org.uk) was set up in response to challenges from the Local Strategic Partnership to make better use of evidence, and support stronger local partnerships.

We talked to Mick Dunn, the GIS, Data and Information Business Manager and Wendy Conibear, the Senior Mapping Officer at Nottingham City Council to find out more about the LIS and how they have been using Data Packs to keep up with ever-growing local needs for in-depth information on neighbourhoods and trends over time.

Background

Nottingham Insight was initially built from an in-house GIS system, which supported data and maps at a neighbourhood level. As local need grew for reliable, up-to-date and easy-to-use data, the system was initially extended by integrating the existing system into Instant Atlas Desktop (www.instantatlas.com). This served Nottingham’s needs well for some time, but as the required volume of data continued to increase further, it was necessary to upgrade the system to Instant Atlas Server.

In order to meet the demand for a comprehensive range of public domain data, the Nottingham team decided to enhance the content of the system by integrating the OCSI Data Packs. Combined with locally collected data and the extensive documents hub already in place, this made the whole range of required information instantly available to users.

“We decided on Data Packs because the demand for National Data was increasingly burdensome for us to meet – people are increasingly needing historic and in depth national data”

Benefits of Data Packs

Meeting local need for national data

Faced with the demand for reliable and usable national data, Mick explained how it made sense to populate Nottingham Insight with the OCSI Data Packs content. As well the city of Nottingham, the packs provide content for all districts across the county, with the system providing different home-pages for the different local authority areas. In addition, the team continue to collect and input their own locally collected data – enabling them to meet data needs for all users:

“Data Packs were particularly appealing as they strongly relate to the
JSNA and Community Strategy requirements”

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Havering Data Intelligence Hub | Ensuring strategic partners are able to access data and get a better understanding of local need

Background

The Havering Data Intelligence Hub provides data, information and research about the London Borough of Havering. The Hub was set up to benefit the local authority, its partners and the public by helping them understand key information about the borough through data, analysis, surveys and reports.

Getting started

Rebecca Booker is Area Intelligence Business Analyst at the council. She says one of the key drivers for the hub was the need for all the partners to have access to the same data.“You often find that people obtain data from different places and this can be confusing as there is little consistency. We wanted to make sure all the data was in one place where everyone can access it,” says Rebecca.

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