Improved data access is key to tackling child poverty: our parliamentary inquiry submission

We have submitted a response to the joint inquiry by the Education and Work and Pensions Select Committees on the government’s Child Poverty Strategy. 

Drawing on our recent research with the Centre for Public Data that was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Insight Infrastructure programme, the submission highlights how improvements to the UK’s data infrastructure and access systems could strengthen monitoring, evaluation and accountability in this crucial area. 

Our key points include: 

• Researchers, charities and practitioners should be better supported to access data so they can contribute to independent evaluation of the Strategy. 

• While valuable administrative datasets exist, many non-academic users face significant obstacles to accessing them, limiting effective policy evaluation. 

• While welcoming the inclusion of metrics such as deep material poverty, we suggest expanding indicators to capture wider aspects of wellbeing, including wealth and in-work poverty. 

• We highlight a lack of clear plans for involving external researchers and call for more explicit support for independent analysis. 

• Delays, opacity and fuzzy definitions of “research” within Trusted Research Environments are barriers here, and we recommend developing a strategic plan for how to better include researchers who are currently left out. 

• Better access to granular data is needed to evaluate interventions at local level and across different groups, alongside support to improve data capability in charities and local organisations. 

We support  the overall aims of the Child Poverty Strategy and are keen to work further with government and Parliament to help build a stronger evidence base for tackling child poverty. 

You can read more about our recent work in identifying and tackling gaps in data around poverty on the research webpages, and if you have faced challenges in data access in this area, you can contribute it to our growing Data Gaps Explorer.  

Read our full response.