D2I news for June: neighbours, networks, and knowledge
- alistairherbert
- Jun 19
- 7 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.
Core toolkit update
Apprenticeships - next cohort applications
RIIA and EH benchmarking - Q4 data available
NVEST update - Adapting Case Management Systems for Families First
Marking D2I's 5th birthday - interest check
Our newsletters
Upcoming events
Early Help data partnership workshops
RIIA dataset reflective workshops
Next open house
Python workshops
NVEST quarterly events
Credits
1. Core Toolkit Update
We recently released new version of ChAT, BmT and the CiN/903 Prediction Excel Tools, which included the move to the new Statistical Neighbour groups; released by DfE here: Local authority interactive tool (LAIT) - GOV.UK
While we had to write the new groups over the existing ones, the ChAT and BmT both have the ability to include your old SN group via the ‘CustomGroup’ tab – where in column A, you select your old SN Group by selecting ‘Yes’ on each of them. The BmT will already have a custom group included on the charts etc. but on the CHAT you’ll need to select custom group from the comparator selection dropdown on the home tab.
Over the coming weeks we’re working on two substantial updates for the ChAT:
Firstly, a revised adoption section incorporating the Coram ASG dataset replacing the very old national dashboard data.
Following that we’re working on a new section (on a new tab so you can ignore it if not helpful) which will allow comparisons between different groups – whether that be teams, geographical locations, demographic characteristics or really just about anything.
If this is something that sounds helpful, or you have ideas about what should be included, please get in touch. I think it’s such a substantial change that we’ll ideally run some beta tests over the summer – again please get in touch if you are interested in being involved.
2. Apprenticeships - next cohort applications
Insight session dates:
16th July 12-1pm
22nd July 2 - 3pm
3rd September 11-12pm
9th September 3 - 4pm
We’re gearing up to launch another cohort of our Children’s Services Data Analyst L4 apprenticeship, delivered by Corndel. This is a tailored level 4 apprenticeship requiring about 20% of your working week over an 18 month period, fully funded by the Apprenticeship Levy, and we’ve already had more than 100 enrolments across our previous cohorts. The course is developing over time based on feedback from participants, and much of that feedback has been positive.
You can read more about the programme, express your interest in the course and register for insight sessions using the link above. We would encourage you to register interest in attending one of those sessions to find out more, either for yourself or any colleagues in your team who may benefit. Learning commences 29th October 2025, so there’s plenty of time after the briefing sessions to consider your options and get an application in.
3. RIIA and Early Help Quarterly Benchmarking - Q4 data available
We’ve now received back RIIA Q4 data from all regions, so we’ve updated the RIIA Quarterly Benchmarking Tool accordingly. We’re also sharing our first cut of Q4 data for the Early Help data partnership, featuring data from 97 LAs. That's a new record! This return is open to all LAs who would like to participate, if you’re interested or would like more information please get in touch.
A few things to note for these tools. We’ve noted some variation in how LAs are reporting on care leavers in the RIIA Quarterly Dataset (Measure 220). Where possible, we’d encourage LAs to align with the SSDA903 definition and include all care leavers age 17-24, not just those currently open to the care leaving team. We understand that some local circumstances may mean full alignment isn’t always possible but appreciate the effort to steer towards it where we can.
The RIIA Benchmarking tool also has two new tabs:
Combined_authorities showing averages of current and proposed combined authorities compared to current regional averages. Well worth checking if your LA is in a CA or proposed CA.
YTD showing the measure figures in a cumulative year-to-date format. This came from the work we've done to support Yorkshire and Humber with their regional data collection, so we've added it to the national tool as well.
We have also noticed that some LAs had submitted blank returns for some measures, and that these were skewing average rates and percentage calculations. We've now removed all blank measure submissions from the tools, which may result in some slightly higher regional and national averages for some measures. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. Both tools have also been updated to reflect the new statistical neighbour release.
If you see anything amiss, or have any feedback for potential future improvements, please let us know so we can keep things working for everyone.
4. NVEST update – Adapting Case Management Systems for Families First
Over 200 people from 89 LA’s attended the online meeting on 14th May. Tom Griffiths from the DfE gave an update of the programme so far, and Pathfinder colleagues from Dorset and Wolverhampton also gave presentations on transformation and some of the challenges they encountered with adapting their Case Management Systems (CMS) to meet the new programme requirements.
The meeting also included time for smaller group discussions on transformation challenges around bringing together process and practice. The main feedback was around concerns on updating CMS systems whilst the practice transformation is not yet in place and not knowing what future monitoring requirements might be. The cost and timescale of implementing the changes was also discussed as well as ensuring that the suppliers involve LA’s in the redesign to make sure that its right first time and future proofed. If you would like to read the full report please click on this link - Adapting Case Management Systems for Families First (NVEST Briefing May 2025)
The meeting evaluation responses showed that it had been really helpful and great to be able to come together to discuss common themes:
The next meeting will be in September, and if you would like to be involved and are not yet registered on the NVEST website please click on this link - NVEST
5. Marking D2I’s 5th birthday - interest check
We've noticed, a little belatedly, that this year marks 5 years of work under the D2I name, which feels like quite a milestone for something which began as a one-year project. When colleagues convened to discuss possibilities in January 2020, I wonder how close their imaginings were to how we're now operating as a service. It's surely good news that we are still operating; our annual report to all colleagues, covering what we did with the year and what we're planning next, will be a little late this year, but that may mean it ends up coinciding with the five-year anniversary of D2I's first full time officer starting work in September 2020.
We're thinking about marking the anniversary in some small way. If you'd be interested in celebrating with us, please could you spend a few minutes to complete our interest check poll? Even if you wouldn't, or wouldn't be able to make it, could you take a moment to tell us so? We would like to plan an event for later in the year, but could really use your input on likely attendance, locations (online is one option) and content. Once we've heard from people about possible interest, we will be back in touch with details of what we're planning.
6. Upcoming events
(Next open house: Wednesday 16th July at 13:00)
(Python workshops running weekly on Thursday and Friday afternoons)
(NVEST third event Tuesday 16th September 09:30 – 12:00)
We're putting our RIIA/EH workshops on hold temporarily - apologies if you were looking forward to the next of these, we hope to have them back in the diary very soon.
In the meantime, 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. We don’t yet have an agenda for the July session, so if you have particular requests, do let us know.
6. Our newsletters
We've been delighted to meet a lot of new colleagues since launching NVEST, and I'm mindful that this "hold-all" approach to newsletter communications may not be ideal for everyone on our mailing list. As a team we're looking at ways of segmenting the groups without inadvertently excluding people from information they're happy to receive - often people get involved with one thing we're doing in a small way, and then find out about something else they want to be involved with in a big way.
So this is just a note of apology to say that, if you recently signed up for NVEST and don't want to hear about the wider range of things D2I support for LA data people, we're working on doing newsletters differently in future.
If you definitely do want to make wider use of our support, and haven't already, you can sign up for access to D2I tools at www.datatoinsight.org
7. Credits
Credit for recent improvements to our data tools and project work is due to colleagues in:
Ofsted
Coventry
Thurrock
Achieving for Children
Harrow
York
East Sussex
Gloucestershire
North Tyneside
Northumberland
Kent
Brighton and Hove
Bexley
Liverpool
Cumberland
Essex
That’s it! If you have any comments, queries or ideas that you want to share, just let us know.
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