The data journey is a programme designed to help you learn how to use data to support decision making. Over the eight weeks, we will learn the basics of data and data analysis, including asking questions, finding, analysing and visualising data, and presenting stories so people can take action. The first workshop will give you a grounding and a chance to meet your fellow participants. Our workshops are interactive, you’ll be “learning by doing”, so expect to roll up your sleeves and get involved.
Here you’ll find resources that we’ll use through the day. If you couldn’t join us, this is the perfect way to catch up or follow along.
This post will be updated throughout the day on 31 May 2018.
Agenda
10:00 Introductions // Housekeeping
10:30 The Basics 1 // What is data?
11:30 Break
11:45 The Basics 2 // What is data analysis?
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Asking Good Questions
15:30 Break
16:30 Review & Reflect // Homework
17:00 End
Social Media
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Really useful guidance on how to formulate a question and then how to use the data analysis pipeline to guide the analysis process and refine the question. I also thought it was useful to hear a definition of statutory funding as it is a term that is thrown around a lot and it’s good to have everyone on the same page.
The document on advanced searching on Grantnav is also very useful, particularly in terms of the wild card Boolean operator.
My questions is: what are the funding gaps in support and care for older people due to reduced availability or termination of statutory funding?
Where are the poverty related gaps in Trafford due to reduced availability of statutory funding?
I’m not sure if this question is too broad. I would like to find out what has reduced/stopped being commissioned, and therefore where might we be able to fill the gaps as an anti poverty funder in Trafford.
If needed to get more specific I was thinking of focusing on one aspect of poverty e.g Mental Health provision in Trafford.
As an anti poverty funder I think it would also be relevant to look at this in relation to the indices of multiple deprivation to see where the areas of need are in relation to where the statutory funding cuts have happened. Could also compare this to where we currently have given grants.
‘What gaps/hotspots are there in funding (both statutory and non-statutory grants) for organizations/work to improve biodiversity in London, the High Weald AONB and the Lochaber region of the Scottish Highlands?’
Based on today, I will be looking at how to refine this question, eg, to determine the limits of what constitutes ‘orgs/work that improves biodiversity’ in terms that can be drawn from available data; to clearly define the geographies etc. I will also look at where comparative datasets might better define ‘gaps/hotspots’, eg, looking at data on biodiversity/green space distribution as well as data on funds distributed.
Today provided a good foundation for starting to explore tools and data available.
Great tools to engage people who are less familiar with data, e.g. data sculpture, wtf csv
Data pipeline is a very useful approach
Lots of really good resources
Question:
What types of early childhood development (ECD) services have seen the biggest funding cuts in the last 5 years? Who is funding ECD? Who are the main recipient organisations?
I found this a really useful session - especially about deciding on a question and how this affects the rest of the analysis.
My question is: where are the funding gaps in areas of deprivation (bottom 10%)? And for what causes?
Then… in hot/cold spots what does the statutory funding look like?
I’m interested to find out what data about statutory funding is out there.
My question is: Where are the gaps in funding for ex-offender supports, and does this indicate what kind of support is prioritised?
I might need to refine this by looking at what I mean by ex-offenders (released within 5 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc) and how I would define or or categories the supports (eg housing, employment, mental health etc). I am interested in seeing if the focus (or neglect!) of statutory funding aligns with that of the non-statutory funder and why.
I found our first session very useful and was glad it started from basics, talking about what is data, what is statutory. A lot of times it feels like training can rush ahead on assumptions. Also enjoyed spending time thinking about how to frame the question, and not being afraid to change the questions according to what data is available.
Looking forward to getting stuck in and also trying to find other sources eg from Justice Data Lab.
Thanks for a really useful session, very thought provoking and useful. I felt the model for refining the questions and data sources especially useful.
In terms of my question, like many others I think regarding the impact of statutory funding. So heres the question
“What are the changes in indepndent funding by geographic area (East Midlands Local Authorities) compared to changes in grant expenditure to the voluntary sector of that Local Authority over the past 5 years?”
In terms of data sources obviously the Grant Nav will give me a good indication of the indepndent funding, but I was clear where I would get the information on the Local Authorities. You did say you may have some suggestions.
Manchester City Council - Deprivation has key deprivation statistics for Manchester which ranks ranks 5 out of 326 local authorities in England, where 1 is the most deprived.
Browse the resources and see if anything jumps out at you. Check any data you find against the handout and compare with the GrantNav grants for Trafford.
The Darwin Initiative is a UK government grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment through locally based projects worldwide.
Interesting! I could only find 3 grants for Early Childhood Development in GrantNav which is unusual. So I’d define ECD and see if it’s funded with other descriptions, for example, childhood obesity?
You can contact the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government by email (indices.deprivation@communities.gsi.gov.uk), they may be able to advise what constitutes an area being declared most deprived.
Thanks so much Clare! Looks like you’ve got a great handle on some things to refine. It’s worth looking at what data is out there as it could help with the process of refinement.
There are 45 councils who are members of the East Midlands Councils. Using their website information, you can search for “Grants to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations” which are required under the Local government transparency code 2015.
Thanks Edafe. I’ve used the IMD data before. I think what will be the biggest challenge is finding the most appropriate geographic code on the 360giving data to be able to match it up with the IMD data (as it’s based on LSOAs).
I see what you mean Abi. It looks like there are two summaries of the indices that might be useful for you in this case - town level in the Town and Cities Analysis section and local authority summary level in the English Indices of Multiple Deprivation section.
Thanks for a great workshop last week. I am late to the party here as this is my first day back at work since then!
My question is:
Where in London are there large numbers of people with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) and does this match with the areas where my organisation has given out Samaritan grants? And ideally I would also like to look at whether the numbers of people with NRPF has increased since 2010, and if so, where.
(Samaritan grants are given to frontline organisations for them to operate as a hardship fund, helping people out in an emergency e.g. with a small amount of cash for food, travel, or utilities. Often it’s people who are destitute because they are NRPF and have no right to work either.)
I guess I need to clarify what I mean by “where”. It would be brilliant if I could find data for local neighbourhoods/wards of London, not just boroughs.
My question is: is there a relationship between statutory funding and increasing loneliness in Big Local areas in greater Manchester?
There are about 8 Big Local areas in greater Manchester and I would be really interested in comparing that with the rest of greater Manchester. And as I begin to look for data to answer the question, I probably need to think about what kind of statutory funding I should be looking.