A New Phase for SAVVI

by Shelley Heckman, Published 19 December 2024

iStandUK is delighted to announce that we have secured funding for phase 4 of the Scalable Approach to Vulnerability Via Interoperability (SAVVI) project. Local Digital, at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHCLG), has awarded iStandUK a further £190k to continue the project which is breaking new ground in the way we approach public sector data sharing.

The project’s vision is that SAVVI standards result in reduced hardship for vulnerable people and households. SAVVI aims to propose national data standards that improve a locality’s ability to make use of data to support vulnerable people and households. Phase one started in 2020, and we are now commencing phase four in 2024. For a quick recap of what we have done in each phase, please read the

Phase 3 reflections blog.⁠

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Our plans for Phase Four:

Phase 4 is our most ambitious yet! This phase moves the progress forward for SAVVI in five key areas: further adoption; assets, impact, data access, and engagement.

Workstream one: further adoption

The first of the five key areas in Phase 4 is: towards SAVVI adoption. We are keen to work towards wider adoption of SAVVI in four key ways:

SAVVI as a competency, and ambitiously, established in a geographic region. We have proved that SAVVI has worked as an approach and methodology for projects that use data to identify and support people who are potentially at risk of vulnerability. We are now keen to support those that invested in using SAVVI methodology in one vulnerability area to reuse this investment in our approach to other vulnerability projects. We are in early discussions with Improvement Service in Scotland to explore whether it is possible to establish SAVVI as a competency across Scottish local authorities. Greater Manchester Combined Authority has also expressed an interest in exploring how SAVVI can be adopted as a competency across Greater Manchester.

SAVVI embedded within a vulnerability area. We proved that SAVVI worked very well in Wigan for their civil contingencies work, particularly in identifying who might need support to evacuate in the event of a flood. We have had a lot of interest from the civil contingencies community in SAVVI and we are keen to see if we can get SAVVI adopted more widely across civil contingencies as a whole.

Adoption of SAVVI by Government. We are keen for Government departments to buy into vulnerability as a cross-government issue both as a provider/consumer of risk data, and support of government adopted standards for compliant products and services.

Adoption of SAVVI by Industry. To make data standards work, we need the tech industry to also buy into the standards. Our work so far has been to develop robust Government and sector supported standards that the tech industry can have some confidence in.

Workstream two: assets

The second of the five key areas in Phase 4 is about developing and refining SAVVI products and services. Within this package of work, we will be concentrating on the development of the following:

SAVVI Playbooks and Templates. We will continue to improve our offer by refining the SAVVI playbook and templates as these are used.

Standards development. The standards continue to be developed and refined via the CDDO-led Cross Government Working Group through the process of agreement and adoption.

Accrediting and supporting SAVVI practitioners. Up to Phase 3, SAVVI has appointed its own Engagement Team, to work directly with organisations, to carry out all, or parts, of the SAVVI Playbook. From Phase 4, to accelerate the take up of SAVVI, we need much more engagement capacity. The SAVVI programme itself does not want to manage the roll out to every possible organisation. As SAVVI is defined as a set of methods and standards, it should be possible to train people to take on certain deployment roles, and give assurance of quality via accreditation.

Supporting materials. We are building a library of supporting materials such as short videos that explains different aspects of the SAVVI process and standards. This should help guide people to navigate the SAVVI playbook more effectively.

Building platforms. This piece of work was an ambition under SAVVI Phase 3, but our thinking around this required more maturity, and better alignment to wider Government ambitions. Phase 3 funding for this portion of the project has been rolled into Phase 4 funding to be delivered under this phase.

Configuration. SAVVI has built a prototype Config tool to configure the data elements required to share data on a given vulnerability for a particular purpose which has been tested with success. However, we want to explore the opportunity for a single terminology server for Local Government, and to see what the appetite is for a sector wide solution rather than just a one-off SAVVI tool.

Data Catalogue. In earlier phases of the SAVVI project, we were keen to develop a SAVVI data catalogue to give visibility of what data shares are being used by other councils for various vulnerabilities. This idea, born out of SAVVI, is gaining a lot of traction and we are keen to support a national catalogue managed and hosted by Government.

Workstream three: impact

The third of the five key areas in SAVVI Phase 4 is about applicability, policy and impact. As part of this work we will be undertaking the following:

Horizon Scan: we would like to keep abreast of the public sector policies and projects that are relevant to the scope of SAVVI. To do this, we are working with MHCLG, the LGA, Improvement Service and the iStandUK Executive Board to develop a ‘Horizon Scan’ service.

Capturing Existing & Conducting new Assessments: we are keen to capture existing assessments such as civil contingencies and rural child poverty, but to also conduct new assessments in new areas, such as Supporting Families, homeless prevention, financial hardship etc.

Metrics Viewer: we would like to create a metrics viewer via configuration of data feeds from the LGA’s LG Inform.

Workstream four: data access

Unblocking access to data is the fourth of the work areas as part of SAVVI Phase 4:

Supporting changes to legislation and regulations. SAVVI is keen to unblock access to data where there are no clear existing legal gateways that allow for data sharing in a SAVVI project. We are working with the Digital Economy Act team at CDDO to support legislative and regulatory change. This work started in Phase 3 and continues into Phase 4.

Local Public sector Data sharing centre. We are looking at the opportunity to set up a service to support Local Authorities with advice about established data shares. Recognising that this is not something that SAVVI can provide as a national service, the project is working with MHCLG to explore the possibilities of a national service hosted by the department.

Workstream five: engagement

The fifth and final key area of SAVVI Phase 4 is SAVVI Governance and Engagement. Community engagement is a core area of work in SAVVI; this has been the case from the very start, in Phase 1. In Phase 4, we will continue to engage with our stakeholders through the already established groups that we created in earlier phases. These include:

SAVVI Board (Leadership Group)

Data Enablers Group

Technology Group

Find out more

We work in the open and there are several ways you can keep up to date with our progress:

SAVVI mailing list ⁠

to receive our monthly newsletters

Attend SAVVI Show and Tell Sessions

Take a look at the

‘News’ page⁠

on the SAVVI website.

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