Case studies

In 2017, the coastal flooding emergency at Jaywick Sands in Essex highlighted the need for a merging of data sources between the county council and the districts in order to best identify and evacuate vulnerable residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led the Government to take measures to encourage social isolation and slow the spread of the disease.

SWIMS is a decision-support and data collection tool for Kent’s public-sector services to record and monitor the impacts from, responses to, and resulting financial cost of severe weather events.

Running a virtual workshop using MS Teams

Cyber security managers in local authorities have their hands full trying to ensure their organisation doesn’t become yet another headline-grabbing example of a damaging cyber-attack. It’s an uphill battle and judging from the rapidly growing number of victims, it’s a battle many are not winning. The London Borough of Bexley provides an insight into the cyber security gaps which led them to seek a major change of strategy, and how the team overcame these challenges and significantly raised its level of cyber security.

Screening has a significant role to play in delivering earlier diagnosis of most common cancers. We applied to be part of the LGA Behavioural Insights programme to work alongside national experts and develop an innovation to increase cancer-screening rates in targeted communities.

A mixed method approach was adopted and a pragmatic behavioural insights framework was employed to inform the redesign of the service offer with the aim of making treatment uptake easy, attractive, timely and social (EAST). We explored factors affecting treatment uptake through a behavioural insights survey (Phase 1) collected between September 2018 and January 2019, and qualitative interviews (Phase 2) with HART service users conducted between October 2018 and May 2019. Recommendations were implemented between September and December 2019. We used routinely collected data to compare service uptake rates pre and post service redesign.

Audience analysis has helped Westminster Council to raise £900,000 for vulnerable residents through the Community Contribution campaign.

To raise awareness about child poverty, Cheltenham Borough Council coordinated a year of action together with local charities and businesses.

Outside Edge Theatre Company (OETC) offers free drama activities to help people affected by addiction live healthier lives. They have partnered for over 20 years with local authority commissioners in West and North West London to co-produce evidence-based, peer-support activities that improve wellbeing to prevent relapse. This case study forms part of the Value of culture - community engagement section of our online Culture Hub.