Introduction

At the start of the COVID pandemic, London boroughs had a huge task at hand: to identify and support residents most in need. Data was a key enabler of this. Boroughs needed the right data to understand which of their residents were vulnerable and would become vulnerable as the pandemic went on.

A key indicator of vulnerability is that a child receives free school meals (FSM). One challenge with using this indicator is that if a child attends a school outside their borough of residence, their home council may not know they receive free school meals. 

LOTI solution

Responding to this need, LOTI worked with the Information Governance Group for London to create and endorse an information-sharing agreement that would enable boroughs to share detailed information about children in receipt of FSM who attend school in their borough.

Working with the GLA London Datastore team, we created a spreadsheet showing how many children from each London borough attend school in other boroughs.

Coming Next:

• Case study for sharing FSM data via the London Datastore