Nesta has cited the Essex Innovates project as a leading example of collaborative public service predictive analytics in its paper State of Offices of Data Analytics in the UK.

Essex Innovates, a transformative data science and AI partnership between Essex County Council, Essex Police and the University of Essex, developed from the Essex Data programme.

Essex Data successfully trialled sharing, anonymising and storing data from different partners, and using it to predict what the future might hold for some of our most vulnerable  residents; children under five that are not ready to start school; escalating incidents of domestic abuse; gangs, violence and vulnerability in relation to county lines; and avoidable attendance at A&E.

The insight generated has enabled us to design new  services together with our communities, make system wide data-led decisions about how and where we target our services, and has informed more than £3m of partnership funding bids.

Building on what we have achieved and learned through Essex Data, the ambition for Essex Innovates is to have the best data science/analytical capabilities in the UK to benefit our people and communities. 

To achieve that we need to ensure we have the skills, capability and technology to undertake predictive analytics based on ethically high standards. We'll also create a sustainable data infrastructure that allows Essex to continue being an exemplar for the integration of data across public bodies.

2019 will see the creation of: an Ethics Board and an Essex Standard covenant; an Essex Centre for Data Analytics, whether virtual or physical; an accredited qualification scheme for public sector analysts; and communities of practice, all to bring together people, expertise and public engagement feedback to direct our analytical work and allocate resources in the most effective way.