To build on the data analysis conducted as part of this project, Nesta and key stakeholders from across Birmingham and its partners worked to ideate, test and prototype an early years data tool in three co-design workshops. The most developed prototype for the tool was an interactive data report created using the previously analysed static data. This report allows users to explore outcomes, service use and other related datasets in more detail, deep dive into areas or data sets of particular interest and draw their own conclusions from the data.

The interactive data report also showcases the art of the possible. It acts as a proof of concept for bringing together early years data to better understand and support service delivery. When shared alongside other prototypes in the co-design workshops, it led the team to decide to focus on four key use cases for version 1 of a locally held early years data tool. These include:

• providing a holistic view of early years services and childcare activity by bringing together different and currently siloed outcomes and service use data held locally
• identifying areas of highest need and their characteristics by providing detailed profiles and maps of areas across the city
• supporting integrated working across early years services by capturing and presenting meta-data (including contact details for a team responsible for that data) to catalyse conversations as a precursor to taking meaningful action in a targeted, evidence-led way
• empowering caregivers to make their own decisions about childcare by linking the tool to a public facing platform (that sits on Birmingham Council’s City Observatory). In the co-design workshops Birmingham City Council and its partners felt this was an important additional use case in order to increase accessibility of early years data for families and members of the public.

One of the key limitations of the data analysis we conducted is that it provides a static and limited snapshot of where early years outcomes and service use are poorest. This means that our findings might quickly become out of date and our analysis would need to be conducted again with each refresh of data to provide the most up-to-date picture of the early years in Birmingham.

A data tool that enabled the above use cases could also overcome this limitation by having two key features. First, it could link the most up-to-date early years data and present a ‘real-time’ view of outcomes and service use across the city. Second, it could be embedded within Birmingham’s data systems to speed up and automate data linkage processes and provide the council with greater ownership of any data processing as well as functionalities and features of the tool.

This data tool would give the council and its early years health and care partners greater autonomy to sustainably draw insights from their own data and therefore would add huge value to the existing early years ecosystem in Birmingham. For example, by better understanding where take-up of funded childcare hours and outcomes are particularly low, this could kick-start conversations between the council, service providers and local families that shed important light on ways to tackle barriers to engagement with services. In addition, knowledge gleaned from this tool could be used to ensure those most in need are targeted with information about the availability and location of funded childcare and to encourage the take-up of childcare and other early years services. This is important as engagement with high-quality childcare and early years services is known to improve children’s short- and long-term educational, cognitive, social and behavioural outcomes.

The insights obtained from our interviews and co-design workshops were used to create a design brief for version 1 of the tool that accounts for the range of desired use cases and functionalities. It also sets out the processes agreed by the team that should be followed for the tool’s development. These processes fall into three broad groupings, with different members of the team responsible for specific steps:

• obtaining the necessary source data in a suitable format on a regular basis
• collating and managing the data in a central place
• developing and managing the tool at the user-facing end

This work demonstrated that building this early years data tool would be a step towards maximising the value of early years data already held by different parts of Birmingham’s system.