The United Kingdom is looking to radically upskill civil servants in data science and analysis through a combination of formal learning and hands-on policy delivery.
Launching the new Government program, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case said the Evidence House initiative was founded with the aim of crowdsourcing solutions to hard-to-solve problems in Government, while also boosting the Government’s data science and analysis skills.
Program founder and Director of the Prime Minister’s data science team, Laura Gilbert said t “by improving and connecting our data, upskilling our people and bringing them together across siloes, we can unleash a revolution that improves the lives of everyone in this country.”
Early Evidence House projects that civil servants’ work on will include: maternal and infant safety; high volume fraud; civil service efficiency and skills; efficient 999 emergency call handling; predicting serious crime; and prevention of homelessness.
These projects are to be driven through cross-government “hackathons”, in which analysts from across Government and beyond work together to link data and draw insights around difficult high-priority challenges.
Ms Gilbert said that following the initial hackathons, existing and aspiring data experts will be offered the chance to apply to join longer term “solution squads”.
She said these temporary multidisciplinary teams would work together, under the guidance of mentors and technical specialists, to effectively deliver real solutions back into sponsoring departments.
Evidence House will also offer free of charge training in everything from safe use of artificial intelligence through to how to evaluate the effectiveness of government spending, looking particularly at difficult cross-cutting issues that have been historically hard to solve.
London, 9 February 2023
