ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) is a partnership transforming the way researchers access the UK’s wealth of public sector data, to enable better informed policy decisions that improve people’s lives. By linking together data held by different parts of government, and by facilitating safe and secure access for accredited researchers to these newly joined-up data sets, ADR UK is creating a sustainable body of knowledge about how our society and economy function – tailored to give decision makers the answers they need to solve important policy questions. ADR UK is made up of three national partnerships (ADR Scotland, ADR Wales, and ADR NI) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which ensures data provided by UK government bodies is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form with minimal risk to data holders or the public. The partnership is coordinated by a UK-wide Strategic Hub, which also promotes the benefits of administrative data research to the public and the wider research community, engages with UK government to secure access to data, and manages a dedicated research budget. ADR UK is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit adruk.org or follow @ADR_UK on Twitter. The most vulnerable people in our society have complex and multiple needs. They are likely to interact with a range of public services, from health and social care; housing and welfare; to the justice system. Whilst the government collects a large amount of data as the public interacts with these services, it is vastly underused. Understanding these populations, their needs, and how they interact with public services over time is vital if we are to improve outcomes. Robust data is central to this, and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has committed to using it more effectively to enhance the evidence for policy and practice. Through Data First, a pioneering data linkage and academic engagement programme launched in 2019, MoJ has set the precedent across government in using innovation to tackle these issues and unlock the potential of the data we hold. This has been made possible by a significant investment by ADR UK. Data First will enable us to accelerate the sharing of justice data with other departments, to enhance our understanding of the relationship between users’ interactions with the justice system and their outcomes across a range of public services, including health, education and welfare. Enhancing this understanding is crucial to the better targeting of policies, interventions and services.

There is an urgent need for design research in landscape architecture to enable the development of a Design Guide for biodiverse green spaces in prisons, which will be safe for prisoners to access. As the second largest government estate, the Ministry of Justice of England and Wales (hereafter MoJ) has a total land holding of >3000 hectares[1], of which 65% is within its prisons portfolio[2]. Despite the significant extent of this estate, for reasons of security and cost, much of the land 'inside the wire' of individual prisons is characterised by tarmac and hard landscaping. Where green spaces exist, these are often closely-mown lawns offering limited wildlife habitats. Recognising these shortfalls, MoJ lists biodiversity as a strategic focus, and has recently established a biodiversity baseline, a natural capital assessment tool, and a nature recovery plan for the estate which seeks to substantially improve biodiversity, wellbeing, and other ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and flood alleviation[3]. In addition to these biodiversity and sustainability aspirations, a growing evidence base shows that green spaces in prisons significantly enhance the wellbeing both of prisoners and of the staff who supervise them.[4] Recent research has shown lower levels of self-harm, violence and staff sickness absence in prisons with more green space. There is clearly both an important opportunity here to enhance biodiversity and wellbeing within a significant proportion of government estate, and commitment to this goal at a senior level. However, genuine operational concerns - that green spaces present security risks when accessed by the incarcerated people who derive benefit from them - hamper progress. Specifically, it is feared that contraband may be concealed in vegetation, weapons furnished from natural materials, and that vegetation may obscure the clear sightlines that are important for security. Both in the development of new prisons, and in any redevelopment of existing prisons, these concerns tend to stifle the introduction of green spaces in any form other than lawns. Design research needs to be applied here: prisons are very expensive to build, and since landscaping is almost the final stage of construction, the lack of clear and costed landscape designs that meet the demands of security means that landscaping for biodiversity and wellbeing is often 'value-engineered' out of construction plans altogether. At best, a lawn is laid, but often tarmac prevails. Working with project partners the Ministry of Justice and prison-building contractor Kier, we will produce a Design Guide for green spaces in prisons applicable across the UK and beyond. Its utilisation will directly support enhanced biodiversity across a significant proportion of the public estate, and with it the wellbeing of those who live and work in prisons. Ultimately, the intention is that the Design Guide will become part of the Technical Standards for prison construction, both mandating biodiverse green spaces in all new UK prisons, and providing a blueprint for their design.

ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) is a partnership transforming the way researchers access the UK’s wealth of public sector data, to enable better informed policy decisions that improve people’s lives. By linking together data held by different parts of government, and by facilitating safe and secure access for accredited researchers to these newly joined-up data sets, ADR UK is creating a sustainable body of knowledge about how our society and economy function – tailored to give decision makers the answers they need to solve important policy questions. ADR UK is made up of three national partnerships (ADR Scotland, ADR Wales, and ADR NI) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which ensures data provided by UK government bodies is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form with minimal risk to data holders or the public. The partnership is coordinated by a UK-wide Strategic Hub, which also promotes the benefits of administrative data research to the public and the wider research community, engages with UK government to secure access to data, and manages a dedicated research budget. ADR UK is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit adruk.org or follow @ADR_UK on Twitter. Data First is an ambitious data-linking programme led by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and funded by ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK). It aims to harness the potential of the wealth of data already created by MoJ, by linking administrative datasets from across the justice system and beyond, and enabling researchers within government as well as approved academics – to access the data in an ethical and responsible way. By working in partnership with independent and expert academics to facilitate and promote research in the justice space, Data First will create a sustainable body of knowledge on justice system users and their interactions with government and across the family, civil and criminal courts, to provide evidence to underpin the development of government policies and drive real progress in tackling social and justice problems.

Administrative data has the potential to open new and invaluable research opportunities to better understand societal phenomena and support evidence-based policy-making. One research area administrative data can significantly enhance is the analysis of life-course trajectories across key domains of interest to social scientists, including education, economic activity, health, and crime. Administrative data is a rich source of longitudinal information on key socio-economic outcomes and public services use that can be particularly useful for policy-relevant analysis. Yet, in the UK, it has been relatively untapped so far. As administrative data and administrative linked data becomes increasingly available to researchers, it is essential that research teams, both in academia or in government, are equipped with the appropriate methodological tool kit to take full advantage of the research possibilities these data offer. In this bid, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) proposes to collaborate with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to address this challenge: we propose a package of activities to advance the use of machine learning techniques to exploit the richness of MoJ's administrative and linked administrative datasets as sources of information on individuals' offending and educational trajectories and their journeys through the justice system. These activities include: a) Innovative research investigating the nature and drivers of offenders' trajectories and how these are shaped by the justice system, by applying, for the first time, sequence analysis methods in UK administrative and administrative linked data. b) A secondment of an IFS researcher to the MoJ to ensure the co-production and policy relevance of the research, enhance MoJ's analytical capability, and strengthen exchange of ideas and knowledge between the two institutions. c) A training workshop led by an international expert in sequence analysis methods to build research capability, within research institutions and government, in the use of machine learning techniques for administrative data analysis. d) A research workshop at the end of the grant for researchers from the IFS and other institutions, as well as analysts and policy-makers from MoJ and other relevant departments, to present and discuss current research using machine learning methods in administrative data. The project team, led by Professor Imran Rasul, Professor of Economics at University College London and IFS' Research Director, has a strong track record of academic and policy work based on UK and international administrative data. By establishing the viability of these methods in UK administrative linked data and demonstrating their usefulness to better understand individuals' journeys through public service systems, the research will make significant contributions to life-course studies conducted across the social sciences. The research will produce at least two academic outputs, accompanied by non-technical, policy-oriented briefs. The team's collaboration with MoJ, as well as the IFS' well-established links with policy-makers and the media, will ensure that these outputs are well disseminated beyond academia and used to inform the policy-making process.

Women's involvement in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) can impact negatively on their relationships with their children. A proportion of mothers appear in both the CJS and the Family Justice System (FJS). As a result of family court proceedings, children may be placed with family members, with foster carers, or may be adopted. The disruption of mother-child relationships is associated with repeat offending and can be harmful for children. However, an absence of evidence based on large-scale quantitative datasets, means we cannot answer vital questions about the scale of this disruption and caregiver outcomes for children. Recent policy developments in England and Wales aim to preserve mother-child relationships with the aim of reducing female offending and repeat involvement in the criminal courts. However, policy makers are hampered by a lack of baseline evidence about mother-child relationships, against which they can measure progress. By focusing on female defendants in the Magistrates' and Crown Court, who also appear in the family justice system (public and private law cases), the COMFT study will link data to advance knowledge about caregiver outcomes for children, when mothers face trial. The study will be completed by a highly experienced and established team of data scientists, statisticians, and specialists in criminal and family justice. Based at Lancaster University, Swansea University and the University of Central Lancashire, the team will use the SAIL Databank at Swansea University, to safely access anonymised data and provide completely new cross-justice insights. The study titled "Child Outcomes for Mothers Facing Trial (COMFT)" has been made possible because the SAIL Databank has acquired new crime datasets produced as part of a related ADR UK study "Data First" - led by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Family Court records are already held by the SAIL Databank. The Data First programme has unlocked valuable records which have been anonymised for research purposes. The MoJ is the project partner, and this will ensure effective sharing of expertise throughout. The Children and Family Court Advisory Service (Cafcass) and Cafcass Cymru are also essential partners. The study will last two years. Stage 1, comprises the linking of women's records across criminal and family justice, and the production of analytic tables to enable analysis of mother-child journeys and outcomes. The team will also describe (document) these data and convene workshops, to help other researchers use the SAIL Gateway for related research. Stage 2 of the study comprises two sub-studies that will capture the demographic profiles of mothers, and maternal pathways between the two sectors of justice, including repeat involvement. The sub-studies will also describe the type of family court proceedings (public and private law) in which children appear, and caregiver outcomes for children. A unique feature of this study, is that it has been designed with mothers with lived experience(s) who will form an advisory group (COMFT-Together). Mothers will help to shape the project and translate findings into policy solutions that are helpful to mothers and children. The leading national charity Birth Companions will support this group and are partnered with the team throughout. The study will provide a much clearer understanding of whether justice systems preserve or disrupt relationships between mothers and children, and help to identify opportunities for prevention. It will benefit policymakers tasked with delivering female offender policies, frontline practitioners, as well as children and families.