EventsChallenge 02 · Civic data
Mapping the Gaps
Cross-map deprivation, crime and digital exclusion across real geographies to reveal where disadvantage overlaps.
- Potto Brown's birthday
- Jul 2027
- layers to cross-map
- 3+
- nations, four rulebooks
- 4
- Countdown
- Fri 16 Jul 2027
01 — The problem
The insight is in the overlap
The UK publishes some of the best open social data in the world — deprivation, recorded crime, digital exclusion — but each is built by a different body, on a different geography, on a different timetable. Almost nobody joins them up.
A neighbourhood can look ordinary overall, yet sit in the worst decile for crime and at high risk of digital exclusion — a compounding problem invisible one layer at a time.
01Mismatched geographies
Data is at neighbourhood level; decisions are at ward, town, district and nation.
Why this is hard
Statistics are published for small fixed areas drawn for counting, not for governing. Wards, towns and districts cut across those areas, so answering a question about a real place means re-cutting the figures — and re-cutting is where meaning quietly gets lost.
02Four nations, four rulebooks
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each measure deprivation differently.
Why this is hard
Each nation builds its index from its own indicators and its own weightings. Each is sound inside its own border, and a rank in one is not the same thing as the same rank in another — so a UK-wide picture cannot be made simply by laying them side by side.
03Buried in spreadsheets
The people who need the patterns — councillors, community groups — are not analysts.
Why this is hard
The data is public and the formats are open, which is not the same as usable. Someone asking about their own street has to know which files to join, and how, before the question can even be put.
02 — The question
How might someone see where different kinds of disadvantage fall on the same people and places, when each kind is counted and held separately?
The question deliberately does not say what an answer looks like. A build, an analysis, a design or a shared standard can all answer it — see the four tracks.
03 — The mission
Reveal where disadvantage overlaps — and where the map defies the assumption
Cross-map at least three layers — deprivation, crime, digital exclusion — across real geographies, and turn the result into something a decision-maker would find useful.
What good looks like
- 1InsightReveals what no single dataset shows?
- 2ClarityClear to a councillor at a glance?
- 3IntegrationJoins data across sources and geographies?
- 4Responsible useTreats communities fairly; states limits?
- 5FeasibilityCould a council actually use it?
Five criteria, equal weight.
04 — The data
The open data you'll get
All sources verified against providers’ own pages. English indices refreshed to IoD2025.
| Dataset | What it is | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Indices of Deprivation 2025 | Every English neighbourhood scored across seven domains, including crime. | OGL · free |
| Police recorded crime | Street-level crime and outcomes, monthly, by neighbourhood. | OGL · free API |
| Digital Exclusion Risk Index | A 0–10 digital-exclusion score per neighbourhood — the technology layer. | Free tool + data |
| Devolved indices | SIMD, WIMD and NIMDM — national equivalents for cross-nation mapping. | OGL · free |
| ONS Open Geography | The join key — boundaries and best-fit lookups to align the layers. | OGL · free |
Open data repository on GitHub (opens external site) No account needed to browse
Take part in 02
Friday 16 July 2027. 100 places, free to enter, open to all ages — some ages may need parental consent. Bring a team or form one on the day — no prior coding needed.