I have always been really impressed with the Nesta work around the office of data analytics approach, there are so many really impactful examples around the UK and we've spoken to a few now. We're starting small and planning to grow. JACOB is our Joint Approach to Community wellBeing (I know the B is a little artistic license but let me off with that one). Over the last month we have managed to successfully put together a really strong team who will now take this work forward.
We are putting our beliefs into practice through JACOB which is all about using data to deliver actionable insights at three levels of work: hyper-local data, a ClearCore integrated data solution and predictive analytics. Our ultimate goal is to support our partners to tackle inequalities across the region and support partners with date for interventions. This vision aligns closely with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which urges us to plan long-term and improve well-being for current and future generations, and with the Marmot Principles on reducing health inequalities.
Bringing these three elements together – hyper-local insight, an integrated data core, and forward-looking analytics – JACOB represents a comprehensive, community-focused approach to data. It’s not about tech for tech’s sake. It’s about people and giving our teams and partners the information they need to improve lives in tangible ways. Our ambition is “tackling inequalities… together” and JACOB is an approach to live up to that: it enables us all to see the same picture and work in unison to address the issues it reveals. JACOB is tailored to Welsh public service values and it’s flexible to our needs (we can continuously improve it). It also means we’re sharing lessons across our partners.
There is, as always, much more to do. We're coming towards completion of our first single view model across our partners, the next step is turning the insight into on-the-ground action. That means working closely with service leads across the organisation to design interventions based on the evidence and to monitor their impact. JACOB will help us identify where to apply an intervention and how big it should be (proportionate to need), but it’s the human effort of our teams and communities that will make those numbers change. Data can spotlight the inequalities; people working together will solve them.
Over time we want to use the work to be able to positively identify what programmes, projects or activities have shifted the needle on our Marmot indicators and be able to use the data we have to support us in shifting it further. If anyone else out there is building Marmot reporting functions, Marmot Dashboards or working within Marmot organisations please do get in touch, we’d love to learn from others and maybe even work together on capabilities.
Matt Lewis, Chief Operating Officer