Since the introduction of the Social Support Act (‘Wmo’), municipalities have had a greater role in and responsibility for the health and wellbeing of their citizens. The Municipality of Barneveld wants to gain insight into the make-up of the local population and how it is changing, in order to align its policies. Ahti has a great deal of experience in the generation of such ‘actionable insights’ by combining, analysing and mapping various bodies of data. In 2019, ahti and the Municipality of Barneveld therefore started a programme aimed at making the municipality data-informed. Together, we are mapping out the current situation, identifying relationships and anticipating changes in the municipality.

Wmo has placed greater responsibility on municipalities

Since the introduction of the Social Support Act (‘Wmo’) in 2015, municipalities have had a greater role in and responsibility for the health and wellbeing of their citizens. Municipalities are increasingly focused on deciding what policies they should pursue in order to improve the health of local people and keep them healthy for longer. Data can play a key role in this, provided it leads to useful insights for policy creation and improvement. The Municipality of Barneveld wants to gain insight into the make-up of and recent changes in the local population, in order to align its policies.

Insight into the (changing) needs of citizens facilitates effective process design

Ahti has developed a dashboard for the Municipality of Barneveld, for which we have defined a large number of citizen profiles. The profiles have been defined using microdata from Statistics Netherlands regarding income, education and other demographic characteristics. Additional data on the use of social domain services was provided by the municipality. By linking actual service needs to the citizen profiles, appropriate service plans can be developed. The process involved looking at:

• The spatial distribution of the profiles across districts and neighbourhoods
• The sizes of the various citizen profiles within the municipality
• The changes in the citizen profiles over time

Ahti also analysed which sorts of profiles settled where within the municipality, and which have left. The analysis findings serve as further input for social service needs assessment and policy alignment.

Status of Barneveld: the data-informed city

In Q1 2020 we delivered the end products of Phase 2 (report, dashboard and dataset), and discussions about the continuation of the assignment with (new) relevant policy themes were started. The project is continuing in 2020.

Partners

• Municipality of Barneveld

Contact

Want more information or do you have a question? Please contact Rosan van Zoest.