Turning Data Into Decisions That Matter; impact cases in the last year

Using Place Insight for Policy

We love to reflect not only on organisational milestones but on the real-world progress our partners have made using data to tackle complex, place-based challenges. These are a selection of stories of how data, community insight, and collaboration have converged to make meaningful change possible across the UK.

In the past year, our projects spanned the country — from Scotland to Northern Ireland, and from London to Lichfield — touching everything from children’s services and housing policy to carbon emissions and preventative health. What connects these diverse efforts is a shared ambition: to improve outcomes for people by grounding policy and practice in evidence, lived experience, and local context.

These cases represent the kind of systems-change we believe is possible when data becomes more than a dashboard — when it’s a shared language for collaboration, decision-making, and accountability.

🔍 Hackney: Data-Led Reform in Children’s Services

In one of London’s most diverse boroughs, with nearly half of children living in poverty, Hackney’s Children & Education Directorate partnered with Impera to reimagine its performance and monitoring function. Facing financial pressures and legacy data systems, Hackney needed a fresh approach to achieve better outcomes for children — and to do so sustainably.

We worked with Hackney to:

• Redesign the team structure and job roles around data and outcomes.

• Co-create a data strategy aligned with their STAR initiative (Systemic, Trauma-Informed, and Anti-Racist).

• Develop new outcome frameworks and monitoring tools.

• Equip internal teams to deliver long-term change through coaching and skill-sharing.

  
  

The result: a £1.3m budget gap was closed through structural reform, while the borough built a stronger foundation for evidence-led decision-making. Hackney is now better placed to improve services for vulnerable children and meet future funding and policy demands.

🗺️ Luton: Becoming a Marmot Town with Ward-Level SPI

Luton, one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse towns, is charting a bold vision for inclusive growth and population health under the “Luton 2040” strategy. We supported them by building a ward-level Social Progress Index (SPI) to help make that ambition measurable and actionable.

What we delivered:

• A SPI model covering 19 wards and over 50 outcome indicators.

• Training for all councillors and key staff to support adoption.

• Coaching for the internal BI team to ensure long-term sustainability.

• Public SPI dashboards to enhance transparency and trust.

  
  

The Luton Index now informs key elements of the council’s approach to inequality, health, and minimum income standards.

🌍 Lichfield: A Carbon Baseline in Minutes, Not Months

In response to their net zero pledge, Lichfield District Council partnered with us to develop a carbon emissions baseline using Impera’s Utility Data Aggregator (UDA) — a tool capable of parsing over 100 utility bills in just 3 minutes.

We helped:

• Collect and structure emissions data for Scope 1 and 2.

• Coach the Climate and Ecology team in carbon data analysis.

• Visualise results through intuitive Power BI dashboards.

  
  

The impact? Lichfield is now equipped with the foundational data to drive informed climate strategies. The project also received finalist recognition in the 2024 Urban Land Institute’s PropTech Awards.

🏘 Hampshire: A Predictive Model for Housing Older Adults

Hampshire’s Adult Social Care team needed to forecast long-term demand for Extra Care Housing — a supported living scheme for residents over 55. With over 1.4 million residents across 11 districts, this was no small task.

We co-developed:

• A predictive tool at ward-level granularity, forecasting demand for 1,600+ housing schemes over 20 years.

• Personas and profiles of residents likely to benefit from schemes.

• Design recommendations informed by ethnographic research.

• Training and rollout plans across all 11 districts.

  
  

This work is now shaping investment decisions, policy, and planning — ensuring housing that is fit for purpose, future-ready, and rooted in evidence.

🛡 Fife: Piloting Prevention and Place-Based Support

In Fife, Scotland, we supported a new Prevention and Wellbeing Operating Model through the “No Wrong Door” pilot. Our role focused on designing an insight and analytics system that could support joined-up services for vulnerable communities.

Key achievements:

• Developed a framework aggregating 86 wellbeing indicators, mapped to 104 Intermediate Zones.

• Designed an “Area Model” for place-based service delivery.

• Trained council officers in Citizen-Led Impact (CLI) methods to improve engagement.

• Developed internal enabling teams and shared data strategies.

  
  

Fife’s model is now better equipped to reduce demand for crisis interventions and foster resilience — one local zone at a time.

📣 Northern Ireland: Citizens Leading the Way

All 11 district councils in Northern Ireland came together with NILGA to host the first Citizen-Led Impact (CLI) training in the region. Delivered by Impera, this event marked a major step toward redefining how local government listens to and involves communities.

Over two days, we trained officers in:

• Methods for engaging underrepresented voices in policy.

• Approaches to equitable, meaningful, and transparent decision-making.

• Practical CLI tools and feedback loops.

  
  

The event concluded with official CLI certification and widespread enthusiasm for applying the approach in health, planning, and community development. In a challenging funding landscape, CLI offers councils a pathway to restore trust and unlock impact.

🏥 Lichfield (again): Data-Driven Health in All Policies

Lichfield once more turned to Impera — this time to embed a Health in All Policies approach. We built the first SPI at ward level for a UK district, informed local planning, and enabled data sharing between Lichfield and Staffordshire County Council.

Key highlights:

• SPI used to support the District Manifesto.

• Data sharing enabled new links between adult social care and education outcomes.

• Project won the “Data to Impact” award from the Linked Organisation of Local Authorities.

• Helped secure a Purple Flag award by evidencing community safety outcomes.

  
  

This work is now being scaled regionally by the Integrated Care System for Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent — proving that smart data strategy drives real change at scale.

Place Insight; closing the gap between data and policy design

Each of these cases shows what’s possible when councils are equipped with the right data, the right partners, and a clear focus on outcomes. They also demonstrate how insights from different geographies and policy areas can be brought together to inform broader, systemic change.

Our strategic platform, Place Insight, brings together curated datasets, frameworks, and use cases to support local authorities in designing more targeted, equitable, and effective policies. While Place Insight is already in use, we are now focusing on promoting its capabilities and sharing its real-world impact more widely.

As part of this effort, we’ll be participating in the 2025 Socitm President’s Conference, where we’ll take the stage to reflect on the past year’s impact and the evolving role of data and insight in shaping the future of local government — especially in a time of reorganisation, constrained budgets, and growing local needs.

If you're attending the conference, we invite you to connect with us — whether you’re curious about our methods, interested in collaboration, or simply want to hear how other councils are turning insight into action. Let’s make data work harder for the people and places that need it most.