D2I News for January: Events and Deadlines
- alistairherbert
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Please find below another bundle of news, within which I hope you’ll find something of interest. As always, if you want to talk about this stuff, or have ideas for how we can do useful things – or how you’d like to get involved – then reply to this email and let us know what you’re thinking about.
NEW MEMBERS: Please note that some links below will only work for LA employees with a D2I website account. If you are receiving this email by forward, and are not currently a D2I site member, you can join our mailing list and website by navigating to www.datatoinsight.org and using the Log In / Sign Up link towards the top right of the screen.
Families First Partnership Programme - D2I Support
RIIA and EHDP Quarterly Analysis Workshops
EHDP Q3 Deadline
SEND data work from D2I
Upcoming events
Next open house
Python workshops
NVEST quarterly events
Credits
1. Families First Partnership Programme - D2I Support
We're really glad to have helped, through D2I, NVEST, and colleagues, work with DfE to provide systems guidance relating to the Families First Partnership Programme. We've now agreed to continue supporting LAs with this work as it moves forward, and we're going to work with LA colleagues to ensure that support is as useful as possible.
To begin with, over the next few months, we'll be offering regular support sessions for LAs implementing Families First reforms. The first event Is being held on Friday 30th January 10:30 -12:00. We'll be providing an overview of the FFP Programme to date and what the data requirements are, before leading a discussion on what a helpful support offer would look like.
2. RIIA and EHDP Quarterly Analysis Workshops
We're restarting our quarterly analysis workshops, providing analysis of the data we collect via the RIIA and Early Help Data Partnership (EHDP) returns. Previously, these workshops were held separately, but with the FFP Programme changes combining EH and CiN into a single workflow, it makes much more sense to look at these returns as reflecting two parts of the same system. These workshops will provide a unique overview of the current EH and CSC landscape, as this is - to our knowledge - the only nationally benchmarked EH dataset available.
The first session will be held on Thursday 12th February 14:00 - 15:30
3. EHDP Q3 Deadline
The Early Help Partnership is open to any LA that would like to contribute, and we’re collecting data for 2025-26 Q3 right now with a deadline of 25th February.
You can find the latest collection sheet here.
4. SEND data work from D2I
We recently welcomed Vanessa to the D2I team to lead on SEND data work. Vanessa is progressing a few workstreams: scoping an extension of the RIIA quarterly dataset to enable more frequent national SEND data benchmarking on the most useful measures; convening a network of region-level SEND data co-ordinators to help support regional data work; and exploring opportunities to provide useful tools in the D2I model for LAs to work with their SEND data, whether that be benchmarking, analysis, or data validation.
If you'd like to get in touch and help us work on any of this, or join Vanessa's SEND-specific email list to stay in the loop, you can do so at the above link.
5. Upcoming events
D2I open house / core tools workshops
(Next open house: Wednesday 18th March at 13:00)
Python workshops
(Running weekly on Thursday and Friday afternoons)
NVEST
(Next session: Thursday 7th May at 09:30)
Our “open house” meeting is a regular chance to drop in on a D2I team meeting where we share what we’re working on and talk about how best to help with data work. We try to cover a mix of “technical” and other work. If you'd like to request a topic for discussion, just let us know.
Separately, Will continues to run Python drop-in workshops on Thursday and Friday afternoons, covering a range of subjects advertised in advance.
Finally, our platform-agnostic IT systems workshop, branded as the NVEST network, just held a fascinating event with input from colleagues at Ofsted, among others, and will be sharing outputs from that meeting soon. The next event is in May, and we really encourage systems managers, users, and overseers to join that if they can, especially if they have any interest in multi-agency information sharing. You can sign up for updates about NVEST at the link above.
7. Credits
Credit for recent improvements to our data tools and project work is due to colleagues in:
Blackburn
Bury
East Sussex
Department for Education
Ofsted
North West ADCS
Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Calderdale
North Yorkshire Council
Local Government Association
Children's Improvement Board RIIA sub-group
Rotherham
Together for Children
SDSA and the East Midlands RIIA
Stockport
Hertfordshire
London Councils
Dorset
South West ADCS
...and more than 100 LAs who contributed to our Centre of Excellence data and digital maturity survey!
That’s it! If you have any comments, queries or ideas that you want to share, just let us know.
Comments