Civil Service Data Challenge puts prison spaces management app on the path to delivery
At the final of the 2023-24 Civil Service Data Challenge, a former prison officer’s plan to improve cell management narrowly beat three rival projects – illustrating the programme’s ability to help tackle major public policy challenges.
A team led by a former prison officer triumphed in the UK’s Civil Service Data Challenge last week, winning £50,000 worth of support for a project designed to relieve pressures on the country’s hard-pressed prisons network.
‘Project Constellation’ aims to build a data platform providing a real-time, nationwide picture of both the UK’s prison accommodation and the constraints on how individual prisoners may share cells. The goal is to build the effective capacity of the prisons estate and save much of the time currently spent by officers on the onerous task of allocating cells.
“I was a prison officer for 16 years, then came across to Justice Digital seven years ago,” commented winning team leader John Saunders, who submitted his idea to the Data Challenge last November. “I’ve rolled out numerous services since then, all with the focus of making frontline workers’ lives easier and more tolerable. There are people in there who work so hard every single day: it’s our job to provide the tools for them to be able to do that job efficiently, because I know how difficult it can be.”
Presenting the idea to a judging panel comprising senior digital leaders from across the civil service, Saunders’ team – which brought civil servants together with digital consultants from programme sponsor NTT DATA UK&I – explained that there are fewer than 1,000 spare beds in a prison system with a theoretical capacity of 89,000. Not all of these beds can be utilised because some prisoners are deemed ‘high risk’ if required to share a cell. Prison officers must use spreadsheets to work out how to squeeze in new arrivals, making for a time-consuming and imperfect process.
As the team explained, if prison officers were to gather a little more data on high-risk prisoners, they could find some of them compatible cellmates, improving utilisation of the estate. What’s more, applying an algorithm to the allocation of cells should produce a much better outcome than asking prison officers to juggle spreadsheets, while supporting real-time data updates would avert errors and wasted journeys. Project Constellation should save 25,000 hours of staff time annually, said Saunders, while cutting costs by £70m a year through reductions in the use of expensive police cells.
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Tough decision
Project Constellation was up against three other finalists, scraping through in the judging panel’s tightest ever result. “It was the hardest decision that we have ever had as a judging panel,” said Data Challenge judge Simon Bourne, chief digital, data and technology officer at the Home Office. “All four teams did an outstanding job of bringing to life the opportunity, the benefits for the public, the benefits for your departments. The passion evident in every single pitch was absolutely stupendous.”
The other teams’ ideas involved creating a data link to hasten the process of notifying the Department for Work and Pensions following a death; building a chatbot able to summarise policies; and developing an app to improve the deployment of district nurses – with the latter coming in a very close second.
“There was a lot more deliberation than normal because it was so close,” commented Vicki Chauhan, head of public sector for NTT DATA UK&I and chair of the judging panel. In the end, though, Project Constellation had the edge on several fronts. “Firstly, the passion from the team came across in spades,” said Chauhan. “Secondly, they’d really thought out the business case and the business benefits – they had a cleaner, tighter story than the other teams on that. Thirdly, they’d thought through the practical application of what they were going to do and the next steps if they were to win. It was impressive.”
This project also had the advantage of timeliness, noted Data Challenge judge Gina Gill, chief strategy officer at the Central Digital and Data Office: “It’s solving a very real problem that’s in the news today.”
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Cross-departmental collaboration
The Data Challenge programme illustrated the need for civil servants to reach out across government as they work to tackle public policy challenges, Gill said, commenting: “You can’t fix real-world problems by focusing on an individual product or service, or working within departmental boundaries.
“The collaboration that I’ve seen across departments is phenomenal.”
That chimed with Chauhan’s experience. After three years as chair of the judges, she said: “The one consistent theme that everybody comments on – judges, data facilitators, contestants – is the collaboration between departments that this competition engineers. It gives a legitimate forum to work across departmental boundaries.”
The Data Challenge fosters this collaboration by building cross-departmental, interdisciplinary teams of civil service volunteers around a set of ideas submitted into an open process by civil servants, then feeding in specialist support from NTT DATA and the backing and guidance of senior digital leaders. From an initial group of eight teams, four finalists emerged from an early development phase and a ‘Dragon’s Den’-style semi-final.
Now in its third year, the Challenge is run by Global Government Forum, the Office of National Statistics, the Cabinet Office and NTT DATA UK&I.
The programme also equips participants with the presentational and pitching skills to ‘sell’ their ideas to senior leaders, noted Gill. “People might have great ideas, but if you can’t communicate them then they’re going nowhere,” she said. “The experience that the teams have had in thinking about how to tell their story is absolutely invaluable.”
From idea to implementation
For Gill, getting involved in the challenge showed that “there is collaboration out there; it gives me hope,” she said. “Working in the centre, it can feel like we’re doing stuff to people but actually, there is a desire out there for people to develop communities of interest”.
Above all, the Data Challenge is designed to carry great ideas from the workforce right through into implementation – and Project Constellation’s victory will be a big help in that process, said Saunders. “The competition itself has raised the profile of the idea so much that the organisation is already committed to fixing the data, which is a huge first step,” he said. “Winning grants us that £50,000, which we can spend on developing an algorithm”.
“Today I feel like I’m giving something back, and that’s what’s really important to me,” he concluded. “From the presentation, you could see that I’m really passionate about what we’re doing. That’s not just for the competition; it’s every single day of the week.”
For more information on the Civil Service Data Challenge, visit the dedicated website
About Matt Ross
Matt is Global Government Forum's Contributing Editor, providing direction and support on topics, products and audience interests across GGF’s editorial, events and research operations. He has been a journalist and editor since 1995, beginning in motoring and travel journalism – and combining the two in a 30-month, 30-country 4x4 expedition funded by magazine photo-journalism. Between 2002 and 2008 he was Features Editor of Haymarket news magazine Regeneration & Renewal, covering urban regeneration, economic growth and community development; and from 2008 to 2014 he was the Editor of UK magazine and website Civil Service World, then Editorial Director for Public Sector – both at political publishing house Dods. He has also worked as Director of Communications at think tank the Institute for Government.
