Data Bites — Public Digital

A monthly hybrid event series aimed at highlighting interesting data projects in government.

Better outcomes for citizens relies on better use of data. Across government, the public sector, and public purpose organisations, digital teams are transforming how they use data in order to more effectively serve the public.

Data Bites aims to spotlight this work, providing a space for practitioners in and around government - in digital professions and beyond - to explore the successes, learn from the challenges, and realise the impact that innovative uses of data can have on public services.

Amanda Smith delivering her presentation

Andy Dudfield giving his data bites presentation showing a slide that reads "bad information hurts democracy"

What's in a Data Bite?

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One event a month showcasing what data can do in a way everyone - inside and beyond data and digital professions - can appreciate.
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Four speakers tell their stories of how their organisations are showing the way and trying to do things differently.
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There are eight bits in a byte.
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Each speaker is given eight minutes to speak followed by eight minutes of questions from the audience.

Previous Data Bites

Kate Marks delivers her presentation while showing a screen with key outcomes of the project she is discussing

Tracking environmental harm in real time

Kate Marks talked about a new digital service they’ve just launched for reporting environmental incidents at the Environment Agency

Tom Parry delivering his presentation at data bites

Digital sustainability in UK government

Tom Parry gave us an overview of efforts within the department and UK government more widely around digital sustainability.

Liz Lutgendorff showing a screen with various waste management scenarios

Data and waste management

Liz Lutgendorff, Senior Digital Transformation Manager at the North London Waste Authority, speaks about why tracking waste is hard.

Council Climate Action Scorecards

Isaac Beevor, and Alex Parsons talked about their work on measuring UK local authority climate action through their bi-annual Council Climate Action Scorecards.

Alex Blandford introduces his presentation in front of a screen that reads "warning: this work is anthropological in nature"

You can’t API your way out of politics

Alex Blandford shows his qualitative research into civic technologists, painting them as “radicalised nerds” trying to fix broken systems.

Tom Smith delivers his data bites presentation

Local AI, done right

Tom Smith makes the case that while AI is not magic. It requires thoughtful implementation, trusted infrastructure, and yes, good data – but also policy, procurement power, and plenty of collaboration.

Laura Gilbert delivers her data bites presentation

Data and AI in the public sector

Laura Gilbert talked about setting up the government’s Incubator for AI (i.AI), and how tools like Caddy can actually make government and other organisations more human and bring them closer to people.

Ed Humpherson showing a line graph representing health inequalities in the UK

Beyond mechanistic thinking

Ed Humpherson, head of the Office for Statistics Regulation argues that the main barrier to innovation is the incurious belief that data are fixed objects produced by predictable, mechanistic systems.

Chris Pointon delivering his data bites presentation

Scheme scheming

Chris Pointon talked about smart data schemes, which offer citizens and businesses the ability to share their data securely and under their control. If designed well, as he argues, this can benefit the public.

Matt in a big screen addresses an audience in the room alongside host Gavin Freeguard

Data sharing in hydrological research

Matt, Environmental Informatics Manager at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, spoke about sharing data in hydrological research and beyond.

A big screen shows Ishmael joining a call in a room full of people

Digital sustainability

Ishmael Burdeau, Lead Sustainability Business Architect at the Department for Work and Pensions, gave an introduction to digital sustainability, touching on some government initiatives to do something about it.

Factchecking as data

Andy Dudfield, head of AI at Full Fact talked about the importance of factchecking and thinking about factchecking as data.

A speaker in a room with people where some people have their hands up requesting a question

Helen, an AI chatbot at St. Helens

Ste Sharples at St Helens Council introduced us to their AI chatbot, Helen. This is designed as a ‘single front door’ for people to ask questions about all council services.

Data Service Standards

Amanda Smith, director at Public Digital, on Data Service Standards: showing what good looks like for designing, developing and implementing high-quality data and analytics services.

Elliot Bridges answering questions from the audience

HFEA Dashboard

Elliot Bridges, Senior Data and Insights Analyst at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, talked about the HFEA’s (award-winning) dashboard, which allows users to explore fertility statistics.

Duncan Brown shows a graph on screen with the results of a survey showing that a majority of people feel that AI will impact them either negatively or neutrally.

Data and AI Federation

Duncan Brown, head of software engineering at the Incubator for AI (i.AI), explored what a federated approach to data sharing, access and use might look like

Data-Bites-No.-50-6_11_24-Medium-5_2025-08-07-135422_kqqn.jpg

Decision making with data

Ryan, head of insight and analytics at DWP Digital, talked about the ‘hub and spoke’ operating model suggested by the DWP Data Strategy.

UK Statistics Assembly

Nicola Fulton talked about the forthcoming UK Statistics Assembly, bringing together users and producers of data and statistics to discuss (and advise on) priorities, gaps and user needs of the UK statistics system.

Data for communities

Sam from Open Data Manchester explained how involving citizens in collecting and using data can empower communities.

Liverpool City Region Residents' Assembly

Emily from the University of Liverpool shared insights from a recent Residents’ Assembly led by Liverpool’s Civic Data Cooperative where locals came together to explore what trustworthy, beneficial data and AI innovation should look like.

Data Bites #57 - cross-government efforts in digital sustainability

Data Bites #56

Data Bites #55 - Elections, AI, Radical Nerds, and the Power of Curiosity.

A woman shows a screen with scenes of waste management

Data Bites #54 - Digital sustainability, thinking about the energy, water and resource costs of data, digital technology and AI

Gavin Freeguard hosting the Data Bites series

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