Harnessing data to tackle poverty

This summer, the Centre for Progressive Policy and their partners at The King’s Fund spoke to IGN member places and others about how their organisations were using data to mitigate, reduce and prevent poverty. This was part of a joint project exploring the potential for information sharing and cross-sector collaboration to improve population health through addressing deprivation.

Key insights from these conversations include:

• Political and organisational leadership and legal backing have enabled some places to explicitly focus on tackling poverty.
• Investment in analytic capacity, whether built into council teams, procured for the development of specific tools or provided by partner organisations like local universities, is a necessary pre-condition for harnessing data.
• Data sharing between organisations is predicated on trust and good relationships and must be built through regular communication.

We have brought these conversations together to develop seven as case studies for IGN members to draw on when thinking about their own anti-poverty strategies.