Nesta worked with Birmingham to link data on early years outcomes, take-up of early years services, location and quality of early years settings and other publicly and locally held data sources. This was the first time these have been brought together in Birmingham, linked at an area level and analysed concurrently.

Our analysis focused on five key questions:

• Where in Birmingham are outcomes the poorest and what are the characteristics of these areas?
• How does the size, range, location and quality of support offered through local early years services vary across Birmingham, and how does it compare with early years outcomes in each area?
• What are the rates of take-up for early education entitlement offers for areas across Birmingham and does take-up differ between areas with differences in outcomes?
• Given answers to the above, which areas are most in need of additional support?

By linking this data together and analysing it for the first time, the project highlighted the benefits of creating a tool which can do this in real-time and be integrated into Birmingham’s systems. Our analysis enabled a more accurate and complete picture of need in the early years and produced novel insights. These insights have the potential to improve how council resources are directed to offer additional support for families who need it the most.

Insight 1: The areas most in need of additional support were previously overlooked

We analysed the data to identify six areas most in need of additional support due to outcomes and take-up of early education entitlement being particularly poor. We were then able to compare this list with areas typically considered to be most in need by the various services participating in the project. This comparison highlighted that, when judged by a combination of performance on outcomes and take-up of early education entitlement, the most in need areas were not usually those which were prioritised by services in a position to provide additional support. This support sometimes included sending additional letters and information about early education entitlements to eligible parents and families (such as to groups of families in temporary accommodation), or increased community outreach activities to encourage take-up of early education entitlement in a local area (for example, in supermarkets).

The six areas (2) identified by our analysis were Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East, Alum Rock, North Edgbaston, Glebe Farm and Tile Cross, Allens Cross and Gravelly Hill. Conversely, existing activities to drive up engagement with services and improve outcomes have been predominantly focused on Perry Barr. While this is a deprived area, it fared better on outcomes and take-up of early education entitlement in 2022 and the spring term of 2023, respectively (3).

This finding illustrates the value of joining up and better utilising this data to improve understanding of the early years landscape in a local area. This analysis and novel use of early years data has shed new and interesting light on where outcomes and take-up of services are poorest in Birmingham.

Insight 2: The most in need areas may require different solutions

By combining locally held early years data with 2021 census data on topics such as deprivation, language, religion and ethnicity, our analysis found that these six areas were not homogenous in terms of their sociodemographic characteristics. This has important implications for how solutions and services are designed in response to findings.

For example, Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East – an area near Birmingham City Centre with the highest number of children not reaching expected outcomes at age five in 2022 – had a relatively high proportion of people identifying as Asian and Muslim when compared to the rest of Birmingham, according to the 2021 census. In contrast, Glebe Farm and Tile Cross – an area with the highest number of assessed children not at or above expected levels of development at age two in 2022 – had a relatively higher proportion of people identifying as white and Christian, compared to the rest of Birmingham. This suggests that efforts or activities to improve outcomes and take-up of services might need to be tailored to these areas, possibly through resources and advertisement materials in languages other than English or by working with community groups to further understand barriers to engagement with services. These insights would not have been possible without joining up and better utilising local data in the early years.