D2I news for September: Families First, services second, technology third
- alistairherbert
- Sep 15
- 5 min read
Dear Data to Insight / NVEST colleagues –
D2I news for September: Families First, services second, technology third
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 informal overview document
Apprenticeships - application deadline this week
RIIA and EH benchmarking - slight delay this quarter
NVEST event tomorrow - multi-agency information sharing
SSDA903 and CIN Census in-year data validation tools updated
Python beginner workshops restarting in October
Upcoming events
Next open house
Python workshops
NVEST quarterly events
Credits
1. Families First informal overview document
We're working on several projects at the moment which link to the Families First Partnership Programme, including helping with producing some formal guidance on data and systems.
We thought it would be useful to share — and maintain — a brief reference document which notes our current understanding of the state of play for data and digital professionals, so you can find that at the link above. If you've been following the reforms closely, you may well be familiar with everything in this document already, but for others we hope it serves as a useful point of reference for key documents, community links, summarised changes, and likely impacts.
2. Apprenticeships - application deadline this week
This week marks the deadline for applying to the next 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 if you're quick there might just be time to get an application in.
3. RIIA and Early Help Quarterly Benchmarking - slight delay this quarter
With apologies, the RIIA and Early Help quarterly benchmarking tools are slightly delayed this quarter. We hope to share them within the next week, and will email separately when they're available.
The good news is that participation in the Early Help collection continues to grow, so when the tools are available there will be plenty to see.
4. NVEST event tomorrow – Multi-Agency Information Sharing
Over 200 people from 89 LA’s attended our last NVEST network meeting on 14th May, and the meeting evaluation responses showed that it had been really helpful and great to be able to come together to discuss common themes in relation to Families First expectations and preparations.
The next meeting is tomorrow morning, September 16th, and if you would like to be involved and are not yet registered on the NVEST website please email so we can send you an invitation. We'll be talking about multi-agency information sharing and we have talks from the following, plus discussion space planned so that everyone can share thoughts and help us drive the conversation on systems and technology concerns across the sector.
DfE: update on the Families First Partnership Programme, and the Multi-Agency Information Sharing programme
DHSC: update on the adult social care system standards programme
Somerset County Council: data sharing across partner agencies via Think Family approach to "single view"
Slough Borough Council: data sharing across partner agencies via Shared Care record
Group discussions: information sharing challenges and how NVEST or others could help
5. SSDA903 and CIN Census in-year validation tools updated
Our browser-based data validation tools, which we developed with help from Social Finance and a host of LA volunteer analysts, are now updated to work with this year's return specifications and known validation rules.
These tools are well-used year-round as a way of maintaining data quality on key datasets, and minimising the work of the statutory returns during return periods commencing each April. By keeping on top of data quality work, the return period itself is more manageable, and the data you're working with year-round is more accurate. Do give them a try, and let us know if you can see any room for improvement.
6. Python beginner workshops restarting in October
Will continues to run Python drop-in workshops on Thursday and Friday afternoons, covering a range of subjects advertised in advance. For more information, please email us.
From October 16th/17th, he'll be restarting his “Python for absolute beginners” course, for which we’ve had some fantastic feedback on previous runs, so if you’re a beginner you can sign up to hear about that at this link: Technical workshops | Data to Insight
6. Upcoming events
(Next open house: Wednesday 17th September at 13:00)
(Python workshops running weekly on Thursday and Friday afternoons)
(NVEST third event featuring Somerset, Slough, DfE and DHSC on Thursday 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. For this week's meeting, we'll be starting with an updated overview of technical requirements and implications of the Families First programme, then making space for any wider discussion you'd find useful.
And separately, Will continues to run Python drop-in workshops on Thursday and Friday afternoons, covering a range of subjects advertised in advance. From October 16th/17th, he'll be restarting his “Python for absolute beginners” course, for which we’ve had some fantastic feedback on previous runs, so if you’re a beginner you can sign up to hear about that at this link: Technical workshops | Data to Insight
Finally, our platform-agnostic IT systems workshop, branded as the NVEST network, will hold a third event on the 16th September (that's tomorrow), 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.
7. Credits
Credit for recent improvements to our data tools and project work is due to colleagues in:
Brent
Ofsted
East Sussex
Blackburn with Darwen
Luton
Kirklees
Wokingham
Liverpool
Stockton-on-Tees
Southwark
Calderdale
Newham
Norfolk
Trafford
Wirral
Sutton
Dorset
Telford
Knowsley
Shropshire
Somerset
Cheshire West and Chester
Hull
Havering
Department for Education
Slough
That’s it! If you have any comments, queries or ideas that you want to share, just let us know.
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