Smart data for smarter policy: Reflections on Evidence Week 2025

^{Photo credit: James Gifford-Mead.}

Last week a small delegation from Smart Data Foundry and Smart Data Research UK headed down to Westminster to participate in Sense About Science’s Evidence Week. Evidence Week is about the importance of bringing evidence and new sources of evidence to MPs and their researchers to help them design better policies.

We were there as Smart Data Research UK's Financial Data Service, to advocate for the inclusion of smart data in the evidence base for policy making, and met with MPs, researchers and public servants from across the political spectrum.

Parliamentary training and meeting with MPs

Rui Cardoso, Head of Public Sector Engagement, kicked off the week with an online training session for parliamentary researchers and civil servants. The training introduced researchers to Smart Data Research UK’s 6 data services before diving into the role that smart financial data can play in formulating and evaluating socio economic policies. Rui demonstrated the Economic Wellbeing Explorer as a resource for MPs and their teams to understand the economic circumstances of their constituents in near real-time, monitoring how financial resilience was changing in response to policy implementation.

The following morning we were at our stand in the Jubilee Room for a series of appointments with MPs and their researchers as they came to find out more about who we are and what we do and to discuss our policy briefing, which centred on using smart data to identify emerging financial hardship.

We had lots of great conversations, notably with Lizzie Collinge MP, Liz Twist MP and Chris Murray MP, and were able to show MPs how the Economic Wellbeing Explorer and smart financial data can act as an early warning system for increasing financial hardship as well as an effective tool to measure the impact of investment in their constituencies. Many of the MPs we spoke to had been awarded Pride in Place funding, and were interested in how smart data could help them to target this funding and evaluate its impact.

It was fascinating to be at Parliament and to talk about the power of private sector financial data to fill some of the gaps in official statistics. Meeting MPs helped us to understand the challenges in their constituencies, and we hoped to have inspired them with the potential of smart data to contribute to the solutions to the problems faced by their constituents.

- Magdalena Getler, Head of Research Growth

Benefits for policy research

The data we can provide access to is made available to us by our data partners, who donate the data to us for free. This model responsibly and securely opens up this previously inaccessible data for research, and offers three key benefits for policy researchers:

1) Smart data is a brand new source of economic insight

• Smart financial data is largely held by private organisations and has been used for commercial purposes. Smart data schemes aim to securely open this data for researchers and public good.
• Provides detailed insights into the realities of the economy, how people are living and how businesses are performing.
• Benefit: Get new, detailed insights into economic productivity, wellbeing and opportunities in your constituency.

2) Smart data is real-world, real-time data

• Smart data is collected in the moment, and it can be used to enhance official statistics - e.g. identifying areas of hidden poverty.
• It’s collected automatically, but is de-identified for research, providing regular, comparable updates.
• Benefit: Improve responsive policy design with data which reflects the here and now, and can be used for more reliable predictive analytics.

3) From national to constituency-level insights

• Smart data can provide insights into national-level economic trends right down to neighbourhoods within constituencies and local authorities.
• See changes as they emerge within constituency, compare them to national trends and improve your understanding of your constituency or local authority.
• Benefit: See how your constituency or local authority is responding to economic policy and advocate for local solutions.

Our policy ask

We are asking MPs to support the integration of smart data into public sector service delivery and evaluation. This could look like:

• Supporting smart data schemes and legislation, such as secondary legislation to be introduced under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

• Utilising smart data in policy development stages.

• Incorporating smart data in policy evaluation and impact assessments.

Using smart data in policy making

If you are interested in the role of smart data in policy, sign up for our newsletter (via the bottom of this page) where we regularly share insights and content built from our data.

You can also access our Economic Nowcast, updated monthly, which provides national and regional insights into changes in income, financial resilience and business productivity.

For deeper insights, request access to our Economic Wellbeing Explorer, our map-based insights tool, allowing users to explore trends and themes in economic wellbeing at a national, regional and local level. It’s tailored for governments, NGOs, policy teams and presents a dynamic, multi-level view of financial wellbeing right down to neighbourhood level.