The Data Springboard is a concept developed between King’s College London (King’s) and Westminster City Council (WCC) to make better use of data for policy and communities. It emerged from the Strand Aldwych scheme and its Smart Working Group. This group explored the use of data to improve the newly created pedestrian zone at the Strand, and how sharing open, big and local data can encourage and promote cohesion and improve engagement with residents, local businesses, workers, and visitors.
Although this discovery arose in the context of the Strand Aldwych scheme, it has wider relevance to the local authority’s ambition to drive transparency and innovation in the borough. The aspiration of the Data Springboard at its inception was to implement a data sharing platform, along a governance model and licence agreement. The platform should also include an established and tested set of data standards that will contribute to data interoperability between Local Authorities / Councils, the public, private and business sector. Such a platform would enable the different stakeholders to share data and insight for the common good, while safeguarding disadvantaged community members, and making the City more attractive and accessible.
WCC and King’s have worked on the Springboard since 2021 and ran a series of stakeholder and engagement workshops in 2022 to establish community requirements. This document outlines our progress to date, findings from the co-creation workshops with stakeholders, and the possible next steps toward implementation of the Springboard, which should include the development of the governance, data and technical framework.