1. Justice Data Lab Joint winners of the RSS 2014 Excellence in Official Statistics Award RSS Professional Statisticians' Forum Meeting Georgina Eaton & Tillie Paul, Ministry of Justice 25 th March 2015

2. What will be covered Aims and history of the Justice Data Lab How does the Justice Data Lab work? Key outcomes Developments Lessons learnt

3. Aim of the Justice Data Lab Launched in April 2013..to improve the evidence base on successful rehabilitation....by giving organisations working with offenders secure and legal access to aggregate re-offending data..enabling them to better assess the impact of their work on re-offending

4. Why do we have the Justice Data Lab? In 2012 we identified that charitable organisations in particular found it difficult to access re-offending data on their clients… … this meant that they could not understand how effective their services were at rehabilitating offenders… … and they were therefore unable to understand how their services could be improved, or have the evidence for further funding It soon became clear that there was intense interest in this initiative from both public and private sector organisations too

5. Project timeline 20132014 April 2013: One year pilot goes live Justice Data Lab Pilot December 2012: Announcement that Justice Data Lab would be piloted October 2013: First publication of Justice Data Lab products January 2012: Ministerial Approval to look into the feasibility of the Justice Data Lab 2012: Feasibility Spring 2014: Pilot extended for further year and announcement of improvements to the service December 2011: NPC approach MoJ about Data Lab idea 2012

6. How does the Justice Data Lab work? Individual level data sent securely to MoJ Provider organisation MoJ Analysis and Matching Aggregate data return

7. What is provided to Justice Data Lab users? One year re-offending rate Frequency of re-offending Time to re-offending Information on characteristics of both the treatment and control groups The best estimates for the one year proven re-offending rate for offenders who received an intervention from WYJS, and a matched control group.

8. Key outcomes Of the 123 reports published so far: 28 reports indicated statistically significant reductions in re-offending on the one year proven re-offending rate 88 reports indicated insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion about the effect on the one year proven re-offending rate Of these 88, 11 reports detail statistically significant reductions in the frequency of re-offending 7 reports indicated a statistically significant increase in re-offending on the one year proven re-offending rate

11. Developments from Spring 2014 Providing greater detail on the matching process within reports Account for regional data and prison establishments when matching the treatment and control groups Within a request, giving the re-offending outcomes by different demographic profiles where possible An assessment of the statistical power within each published request Further re-offending measures e.g Frequency of re-offending, time to re-offending

12. Developments from Spring 2014 Improving the Data Upload Template Communicating with customers on a more regular basis Keeping our underlying data up to date More efficient processing of a request Improving monthly Official Statistics publications

13. Developments in Progress Providing additional information on the re-offending outcomes, such as severity of re-offending Enhancing understanding of the criminogenic needs of individuals – through the use of Offender Assessment (OASys) data Understanding more about individuals that are not matched in an analysis Official Statistics publication review Supporting other government departments on potential Data Labs

14. Lessons Learnt Having internal and external support Availability and quality of internal and external data Complications can easily arise Communicating statistical techniques and results to non- statisticians Explaining transparency to customers Encouraging feedback Continual development work Time and resource Promoting the service and engaging with users

15. Contact Details Email: justice.datalab@justice.gsi.gov.uk Accessing the Justice Data Lab service: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/justice- data-lab Published reports: www.gov.uk/government/collections/justice-data-lab- pilot-statistics