Data Bites #56
Watch the live recording of our latest Data Bites edition or listen on Soundcloud
The 56th edition of Data Bites was our first outside London.
We travelled up to Liverpool (where PD is currently working with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to develop an Office for Public Service Innovation) to hear about a residents’ assembly on data and AI innovation, a health and care dashboard, data for communities, and a council chatbot. After some charts touching on football and government departures, of course.
It was the seventh Data Bites hosted by Public Digital, after 49 events at the Institute for Government. For the uninitiated: Data Bites is a monthly event showcasing how data is used in and around the public sector. Four speakers get eight minutes to present – there are eight bits in a byte, hence eight minutes in a Data Bite – followed by eight minutes of audience questions.
We’ll be back in London for July, a second environment and sustainability special of the year (after Data Bites #54)
Sign up and join us in person or online on 2 July, when we’ll hear from Defra, the Environment Agency, and the GOV.UK OneLogin team.
Emily Rempel: the Liverpool City Region Residents' Assembly on Data and AI Innovation
Emily, research fellow in public participation and data practices at the University of Liverpool, talked about the recent Residents’ Assembly organised by Liverpool’s Civic Data Cooperative. This brought nearly 60 residents together to discuss the question, ‘what does trustworthy and beneficial data and AI innovation look like for the Liverpool City Region?’
Residents decided on 11 principles to guide how data was used, which will be published shortly. While they were concerned about privacy, security, trust and governance, their top principle was that data should be used to benefit the public.
Adam Drage and Michael Hanks: the Merseycare Children and Young People's Dashboard
Adam, Assistant Director of Innovation at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, told us that one of the main problems facing frontline staff from different agencies working with young people was only being able to access their own data about a child. This meant not being able to build a whole picture around the individual or their household in order to help them.
Michael, Principal Data Scientist at Social Finance, talked us through how the NHS Foundation Trust, Social Finance and other partners had tried to solve this, bringing together this data in a secure research environment that frontline staff could then use. Modelling allowed them to join together different data to create networks of individual and household records.
Sam Milsom: data for communities
Sam, Programme Development Manager at Open Data Manchester, spoke about how getting citizens to play with data and take part in its collection and use could empower communities. By bringing data out of spreadsheets and into their real life experiences, data became something they could do something with, rather than something done to them.
Examples included Our Streets Chorlton, which included counting traffic and measuring air quality, and Joy Diversion, where journeying through the streets can change how people think about their local area.
Ste Sharples: Helen, an AI chatbot
Ste, Assistant Director - ICT, Digital, Data and Digital Governance, 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.
Ste talked about the importance of getting the data right, and about governance – which includes the public facing AI never having access to back end systems, and creating data protection impact assessments before every release is launched.
Want to speak at a future Data Bites? Or know someone who should?
Get in touch at [email protected] – we’re always looking for fresh voices and bold ideas.