The Data and Analytics team are delighted to have won two awards at this year’s British Data Awards, and to have been named a finalist in an additional two categories.
The team took the title of Public Sector Organisation of the Year for our work on building organisational data literacy, and also won Innovation of the Year for our work on forecasting the impact of the cost-of-living crisis upon volumes of children in care.
The team was also shortlisted for Data for Good Initiative of the Year and Analyst Nick Philo was shortlisted for Rising Star of the Year award.
The British Data Awards is an annual quest to discover and celebrate data success stories. Organisations taking part this year ranged from FTSE 100 heavyweights, public sector pioneers, technology unicorns, fast-growing scale-ups, essential Not-For-Profits, and everything in between.
Find a job in our award-winning team
Innovation of the year award
In 2022 we took on the challenge of estimating the impact of the emerging cost of living crisis upon our future volumes of children in care. It is widely acknowledged that there is a correlation between increase child poverty, financial stress, and children in the care system, and Essex County Council (ECC) wanted to understand how our future may look, in the wake of inflation rising to 10% and beyond. The purpose of this work was to help the organisation prepare for potential demand shifts, and to simply understand the challenge that could be ahead.
The delivery of this work has provided new insight to our children’s leadership team, building the evidence to help the organisation prepare for the challenges that the cost-of-living crisis presents across all service areas.
Public sector organisation of the year award
Developing a data informed culture is fundamental to delivering ECC’s data strategy and driving change. Data literacy is essential to creating strong foundations, research states that if just one senior leader is data literate it increases organisation productivity/efficiency by 11%, growing as more people become literate.
Data literacy is something that is frequently described as a priority within the sector, but very few organisations have taken us much action as ECC.
This award recognises ECC’s commitment to the development of data science within the public sector. It’s a celebration of best practice in building organisational data literacy and creates a blueprint for leadership and innovation that will drive further transformation.
During the past year the Data and Analytics team have used their professional expertise to grow the organisation’s data literacy, consequently improving ECC’s role and relationship with data, ensuring colleagues can understand, engage, work with, communicate and reason with data.
A programme of activities seeking to change behaviours has been designed and delivered by the Data and Analytics team across leadership teams within ECC, and the wider Essex system, including an array of learning resources and events such as the Data Masterclass which has been extremely successful. We are now developing an organisational-wide data literacy programme that will include online learning, regular events, communities of practice and interest, and increased access to insight and data expertise for all ECC colleagues.
To learn more about Data & Analytics at ECC, click here.
To find roles in our award winning team, click here.