In our digital age, data is critical to help local authorities assess gaps in early years provision, identify issues that need urgent attention and work out which families would benefit from extra support.
But speaking to early years teams across 27 local authorities for the Mapping Early Years Practice Project, it was clear that despite a great willingness to use data to support their work, they were under huge financial strains and faced challenges in both accessing and analysing it.
Whilst financial support is certainly crucial for councils to tackle these challenges, it’s important to also look at specific barriers - and think about how LAs can be supported to make most of the early years data. Below we look at three such barriers and three changes that could support councils to better use data.
