Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1144. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the steps she has taken to develop data collection within Tusla and her Department. [34168/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department collects and disseminates a wide range of data in relation to children and young people.

From 2011-2016 the National Strategy for Research and Data on Children’s Lives (NSRDCL) guided and supported my Department’s approach to the development of data relating to children’s lives. The final implementation report on this strategy will be published later this year. Key actions relevant to data development and collection in my own Department under the Strategy include:

- The publication of biennial State of the Nation's Children Report (SONC) which presents a wide range of disaggregated administrative, survey and Census data on children and on factors relevant to children’s lives. The recently published 2016 report is the sixth in this biennial series.

- The development of the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures (BOBF) Indicator Set (arising from a review of national indicator sets on children’s lives). This indicator set has been developed by my Department to track the progress of children and young people aged 0-24 across the five outcomes outlined in Better Outcomes Brighter Futures (BOBF), the whole of government policy on children and young people. A report on the indicator set, containing over 110 indicators and related aggregate data, will be published in Autumn 2017. The development of a disaggregated data set for each indicator is also underway and will be published subsequently.

- My Departments ongoing commitment to and management of the Growing Up in Ireland Study: The National Longitudinal Study of Children in Ireland. Since 2006 GUI has been tracking the development of almost 20,000 children across two nationally representative cohorts of children. So far over 45 reports have been published by the GUI research team at the ESRI and Trinity College Dublin using the GUI data. GUI data is also used frequently by DCYA to inform policy development and service provision.

A dedicated Statistician post has recently been filled within the Research and Evaluation Unit of my Department and with a second post to support ongoing data and statistical requirements recently sanctioned. A Departmental data needs analysis is currently under way, the results of which will contribute to the development of a proposal and project plan to support the implementation of a centralised departmental approach to the storage and management of data for monitoring, planning and evaluation purposes. The information collected will serve the following key purposes:

- Inform the development of a centralised approach to the storage and management of DCYA and DCYA relevant data for analytic purposes.

- Serve the action from the Open Data Strategy that commits Government Departments to conduct an audit of their datasets.

- Help assess any needs arising following the impending introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

- Provide information on how DCYA data is positioned in relation to the National Data Infrastructure, which involves the use of permanent unique identifiers on public data sources so as to enable linkage of data sets.

This will be the first phase towards fulfilment of Output 33 of the Department’s Statement of Strategy, i.e. “a statistical data reporting system developed to support the work of the Department and its stakeholders”. It will also contribute to Government Commitment G57 of BOBF, by disaggregating data and indicators “by important demographic characteristics to allow for improved evidence-based policy-making, implementation and monitoring, and in the delivery of service".

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency has recently announced the establishment of a new project, Outcomes for Children, National Data & Information Hub. Tusla requires optimum data management, utilising reliable data tools to ensure effective planning services for children. The project will ensure that Tusla can better fulfil its responsibilities by establishing state of the art data platforms through which it can plan its services.

The project will involve the building of an interactive area based geo mapping system to provide information for policy makers, service providers, Tusla management, practitioners, information managers and local communities so that planning and delivery of services are informed by the best available data.

It is being co funded between my Department and Tusla under the Quality and Capacity Building Initiative (QCBI) and is being piloted with eleven Children and Young People's Services Committees (CYPSC) this year, with the aim of rolling it out across all CYPSC areas in subsequent years.

This project is a prime example of collaboration between different statutory bodies and stakeholders, and my Department is providing its full support to both Tusla and the CYPSC as they continue to improve the well being and outcomes for children in Ireland.

I have referred your question to Tusla to provide information on other steps taken to develop data collection within Tusla, for direct reply