13 July, 2023 - CSCDUG Online Event Presenting the Sector-led Standard Safeguarding Dataset Colleagues from Data to Insight, the LA-led service for children’s safeguarding data professionals, are delivering a DfE-funded project in partnership with LAs to define a new “standard safeguarding dataset” which all LAs will be able to produce from their safeguarding information systems. At this session, they shared what they’ve learned so far from user research with LA colleagues and discussed their early thinking about what a better standard dataset might look like. Participants shared their own thoughts about how to improve these systems and processes. Presenters Alistair Herbert Alistair is the lead officer for Data to Insight, the LA-led service for children’s safeguarding data professionals. With a career focused on local authority children’s services data work, he knows about safeguarding data, information systems, and cross-organisation collaboration. John Foster John is a Data Manager for Data to Insight. He has supported a range of children’s services data work, most recently at Shropshire Council. He led Data to Insight’s project to introduce the first national benchmarking dataset for Early Help, and is the user research lead for Data to Insight’s Standard Safeguarding Dataset project. Rob Harrison and Joe Cornford-Hutchings Rob and Joe are new Data Managers joining Data to Insight from the private and public sector respectively. They bring between them a wealth of experience and technical expertise, and will be working together to support design and implementation of the new Standard Safeguarding Dataset through 2023-24.

1. Standard Safeguarding Dataset:
overview for CSCDUG
Led by local authorities with support from the ADCS, DfE, Ofsted, and
DLUHC, we're working to help LAs make better use of data in children's
services
Last updated: 10/07/2023

2. The brief (1 of 2)
LA data teams must balance their limited capacity with high demand for data work. One way they address this
is by sharing data tools, tasks and methods across professional regional and national networks. However, such
economies of scale can only be achieved where datasets are standard across LAs. This limits data
collaboration between LAs to standard ‘core’ datasets – most notably the Children in Need (CIN) Census and
SSDA903, for children in need and looked after children respectively – and Ofsted’s “Annex A” specification of
child-level data to be provided during an inspection. These datasets lack much of the depth and granularity that
individual LAs will look to incorporate in bespoke local analysis, including to understand quality of practice.
This leads to a second issue: while it is inevitable that LAs differ in the quality of their data work to some extent,
the lack of data visibility across the sector leaves some LAs unaware of what they could do to improve data
collection and analysis. The existing standard datasets do not incorporate the breadth and depth of
information which more data mature LAs analyse. We believe that this knowledge gap inhibits
improvements in analytical practice in the sector and so limiting better outcomes for vulnerable children.
We are therefore looking for a partner to develop a standard CSC dataset that is broader than the
previously mentioned core data sets and solutions that would enable the production of this of this data
set across all LAs.

3. The brief (2 of 2)
Stage 1:
 mapping of data that a broad range of LAs are using to understand their services beyond those used ‘core’ data sets
 user research across a broad range of LAs to define the data items, data structures and production methods
which will best serve the sector drawing, where relevant, from existing research on this topic proposals for how other
safeguarding partner information can be incorporated into the standard CSC dataset
 documentation explaining the findings of user research, rationale behind the chosen indicators and how they’re intended
to be used
 a standard CSC dataset specification (including a list of data items and definitions) incorporating multi-year data
histories across the range of safeguarding activities performed by councils, significantly expanding on the available
standard datasets (e.g. CIN Census and Ofsted’s Annex A) in line with user research outputs
 identify where data items in the proposed data set are already included in the CIN Census and SSDS903, Ofsted Annex
A and the Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance quarterly data return
Stage 2
 a suite of standard easily adoptable methods for regularly producing the standard CSC dataset from each of the
case management systems currently used by safeguarding authorities, either as independently developed, free, open-
source products, or as integrated components of those case management systems at no future cost to customers
 a framework for maintaining and developing the standard CSC dataset into the future so it will be accepted by as
many LAs as possible, and include changes made as a result of the care review and social work practice, keeping the
interests of vulnerable children at the heart of all design decisions

4. Our pitch
Our draft specification will be:
Comprehensive – produces everything an LA would typically use, in data analysis or reporting internally/externally
Understandable – welcomes analysts of all skill levels, without excessive technical/conceptual barriers to entry
Replicable – works with any system or practice model the LA chooses, and eases transition between systems/models
Extensible (and reducible) – accommodates the changing data/policy landscape, incorporating and dropping data items
We’ll deliver it by:
User research across whole sector to understand requirements, constraints and possibilities
Expert technical development to draft and test a dataset specification
Collaboration to design, develop and deploy dataset production methods (twin-track community and supplier options)
Delivery of specification and methods to DfE, with documentation and options for long term maintenance
Continuous, wide-scale stakeholder engagement using the D2I collaborative development approach

5. • We want to champion community-driven development
• We engage members of the CS community in specifying
requirements, building features, and reviewing what’s been built
• We see a virtuous circle here - building with the community is a
route to building up the community, and building up the community
expands the pool of engaged analysts who will adapt this and
build the next generation of tools
• This is a lot harder than just building one tool in a dedicated
project team, but the potential benefits are huge
• So the work is about better tools, and better analysts
SSD steering
LAs & D2I
How We Envisage Our Development Cycle

6. Vision for the standard safeguarding dataset’s impact
As a community of Local Authorities, we want LA analysts to have access to a known standard dataset against which they can develop their
analytical tools and reports. With the standard safeguarding dataset in place across all LAs, any LA analyst, voluntary sector partner or
commercial supplier will be able to:
 Design safeguarding data tools for a known environment (what data will be available, how is it accessed)
 Distribute data tools to all LAs with minimal configuration
Any LA will also be able to:
 Produce the standard safeguarding dataset as an output for addressing data queries from DfE and other parties, to ease resource
constraints and enable inter-LA collaboration on such requests
 Given prior approval by relevant parties, deliver data from the standard safeguarding dataset to DfE without initiating new data sharing
projects to address each request
CMS providers make it difficult for third party providers – be they commercial , not for profit, or other bits of govt – to interact with their
systems outside of specific data routes. Should they choose, our product will enable LAs to ignore the CMS as a data source for insight and
compliance reporting, once they have implemented a method for producing the SSD.

7. Design and implementation approach
Prototyp
e
Deploy
Feedbac
k
Iterate
Develop a
prototype
specification
based on peer
testing and
feedback
Deploy to pilot
councils by
developing
reproducible
implementations
Deliver the
product to DfE
and support
adoption by LAs
Agree
maintenance
roadmap and
iterate to improve
over time
User
Research
Knowing a
problem, start
outlining an
approach
Q1-Q2 2023-24 Q2-Q4 2023-24 Q4 2023-24 Beyond 2023-24
Q4 2022-23

8. Similar work ongoing
In the LIIA project, we are:
 Creating a standardised expanded version of 903x, CinCx, AnnexAx which all of the ingest tools will produce as an output
 Providing open source code to produce these versions from any, link multiple returns, do basic transformations, etc.
 Provide a single hosting environment in which this can happen (London Data Store)
 Providing a standard agreement for IG so that end users can ‘authorise’ a particular product and then have it granted access
In the Eastern region benchmarking project, we are:
 Drawing national datasets and local LA data into a benchmarking data store hosted by a third party
 Looking at additional analysis and added value which can be delivered once this is in place
 Exploring potential to incorporate external components e.g. demand modelling into the regional data environment
In D2I we are aware of other aligned efforts:
 iStandUK national group working to leverage data standards in local government
 DfE Improving CMS project, and RBKC efforts to influence software suppliers
 Other localgov consortiums e.g. LocalGov Drupal, Commissioning Alliance, Open Referral UK, etc.
Key questions around these projects when considering replicability in other regions, and our SSD project:
 How do we broaden governance, so that we’re not cloning and duplicating management/maintenance of solutions, and rather working
together on reusable components?
 How do we agree changes to standards and components over time?
 Is there a need for a D2I/NPIMG role to convene some kind of group around this work?
 Who does the maintenance, and how do we pay for it? How do we keep it “fair”?

9. ADCS
Stakeholder map
9 regional groups
Service leads
SSD Steering Group
Vulnerable
children
~150 LAs
Essex
North West Knowsley
Hertfordshire
Policy
changers
600+ LA
“customers”
PM
D2I
IT colleagues
Social workers
Data people
Ofsted
SW practice experts
Data people
DfE
PM
DM
UR PO
Project supervision
Policy people
Internal data projects
Data customers
Collections teams
Statisticians
Other people
3rd party data users
System developers
Peers and “elders”
Other current projects
1b outputs (4)
Care review response
Product
owner
Future data landscape
Manchester, Trafford,
Sutton, Newham, LIIA
Contributing partners