Building the evidence base in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire County Council
The brief
Oxfordshire County Council and the Oxfordshire Community Partnership (the LSP) commissioned OCSI in a set of projects to help identify, develop and analyse the evidence-base across the county.
Our approach
A huge step forward in understanding the county's key deprivation datasets Margaret Melling, Demographics and Social Statistics, Oxfordshire County CouncilOCSI initially developed a set of comprehensive Data Tools for Oxfordshire County Council and the LSP. Available to researchers across the partnership in easy-to-use table, map and chart format (including more than 400 maps of different indicators across the county, and several hundred charts), the Data Tools were immediately used by groups developing the Crime Audit and other local strategies.
Based on the Data Tools, OCSI produced a detailed Area Profile report of the county for the Social Inclusion group. Analysis focused on population structure, multiple deprivation, low income, child poverty, worklessness, health, education and skills, housing, crime and environment. Within each theme, the profile identified the most deprived areas and groups on a number of essential indicators. Benchmarking was carried out against a number of comparator areas, the region and England as a whole.
Outcomes
Simply would not have been possible if we had tried to do it all in-house ... has underpinned a visioning process for the local partnership Dave Waller, Manager, Strategic Policy and Economic Development Unit, Oxfordshire County CouncilThe development of the Data Tools and Area Profile report was supported by all partners across the County, including the County, 5 District Councils and the 5 Primary Care Trusts. The work was seen as underpinning the visioning process for the local strategic partnership.
Following on from the Data Tools and Area Profile work, OCSI are providing further strategic consultancy and analysis to the County partnership, helping develop the business case for a full Data Observatory to share data, analysis and research between the partners.
An initial version of the Oxfordshire data observatory went live in October 2005, providing area profiles as well as data and analysis by key theme.
The project was seen as so successful that the Oxfordshire partnership recommended OCSI Director Tom Smith for the New Start journal "Consultant Honours list".
See more examples of OCSI projects on our project spotlights page
The Social Inclusion Indicators project was set up by Oxfordshire County Council working with partnership organisations. OCSI have been, and continue to be, key players throughout the project, pulling together key indicators and mapping them to the lowest level possible. OCSI researched all sources of data well, kept us informed, and met all deadlines for the project. Sue Lygo, Public Health Information Team, South West Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust