Welsh Statistical Liaison Committee, 10 June 2021: Data Cymru update

On 28 May we said a sad farewell to Andrew Stephens who has now retired, after 40 years of public service in Wales. Andrew who many of you will know has been our Executive Director at Data Cymru for 18 years. Before Andrew left he wrote a blog called ‘New tomorrows’, which reflects on his time at Data Cymru and his career more generally.

Richard Palmer, previously Assistant Director at Data Cymru is now our Chief Operating Officer.

Plans are well advanced for our upcoming office move later this year. We (and the WLGA) are moving from Local Government House to new accommodation. We are remaining in Cardiff, but our new space will offer a flexible working environment. So, as government restrictions start to ease, we will be able to invite partners to face-to-face meetings again as an alternative to Zoom and Teams!

Our new open data portal, Open Data Wales, is now live. The website allows local authorities and other public bodies to publish their open data on a centrally-located site that can be accessed and used freely and easily, without the hassle of having to develop their own website.

We have been working with partners for 18 months to develop and test the site, and we hope it will become the ‘go to’ location for public sector open data in Wales.

To support the principle of open data across Wales, we coordinate a public sector open data virtual network - a ‘community’ of individuals from across the public sector who are interested in open data and are keen to learn and share with each other.

For more information, please contact daniel.cummings@data.cymru

We are delighted to announce the launch of DataBasicCymru and DataBasicCymru+, our brand new training programme and facilitated training package designed to help you build a data culture within your organisation.

The DataBasicCymru training programme comprises a series of free, online, self-serve exercises, workshops (most of which rely solely on paper, pens and discussion) and a small number of tools all designed to help build the fundamental skills needed to use data more effectively in a fun and creative way.

With our DataBasicCymru+ package, you leave all the hard work to us. You will be assigned a personal facilitator who will not only lead all the training sessions but will also work with you, in advance, to design your bespoke training package.

To discuss your requirements please contact Duncan.MacKenzie@data.cymru

Join our free webinar: 29 June 2021 14:00 to 16:00

To accompany the launch of DataBasicCymru and DataBasicCymru+ we are hosting a free webinar on 29 June 14:00 to 16:00. By the end of the webinar you will:

• learn more about the DataBasicCymru training programme and how it can benefit your organisation
• be introduced to the DataBasicCymru materials and have a chance to try out a workshop for yourself
• learn more about how our skilled, experienced facilitators can help your organisation get the most out of the training programme

Please note, the webinar will be delivered in English only, but you will have an opportunity to ask questions and raise comments in Welsh via the chat function.

Click the link below to book your free place and start your journey into building data confidence in your organisation.

A brand new training programme for Wales: DataBasicCymru

Please share this information with colleagues as necessary. For more information about the webinar, please contact duncan.mackenzie@data.cymru.

We are approaching the third year of our current three-year consortium deal between authorities and CACI, which provides access to Paycheck data at a reduced rate for authorities. We will be contacting authorities over the Summer to understand their use of the data and any future demand for Paycheck data.

For more information, please contact duncan.mackenzie@data.cymru.

We have published a Core dataset on our Open Data hub. This is designed to support the data collection exercise that partnerships will carry out as part of their respective assessment processes.

We will also be publishing a Data Catalogue, which outlines the data and information published by a range of regional and national public/voluntary sector organisations that could inform assessments. The catalogue will also include contact details for each organisation if partnerships need more information.

For more information, please contact duncan.mackenzie@data.cymru.

On 28 May, Data Cymru co-hosted a workshop around data management with the office of the Welsh Local Government Association’s Chief Digital Officer. The workshop was attended by over 40 colleagues from across the public, private and third sector. The workshop was an opportunity to get colleagues to think about their organisation’s data journey; where they are and what can be done to move them closer to their strategic aims.

It was an extremely productive session, in which we discussed data strategy, data maturity, and capability. A big thanks to all who attended. We plan to schedule further workshops/events in the future, so if you were unable to attend this one or if you like to be involved in the future then please get in touch.

For more information, please contact sam.sullivan@data.cymru.