How do we better understand supply and demand of school age childcare in communities?

Tender description

Our challenge is data-focussed, relating to a high profile new commitment for this parliamentary term to design and build an accessible, affordable and flexible system of school age childcare provision in Scotland. In order to design a system that works for most people we need to understand what children’s and parent’s needs are in relation to childcare (as well as access to activities). We also need to understand the school age childcare landscape better: What’s currently happening? What are children doing round about the school day? How much of this is related to childcare needs and how dependent is this on the range of resources available within a community? How are choices limited by cost, location or accessibility challenges? Data is central to this challenge because of the complexities of different families’ needs, and the range of different possible providers, but a snap shot in time of data will not solve this challenge alone. To help us to design a sustainable policy approach in this area we want a solution which helps us to understand both the national picture and what school age childcare needs are at a community level, and on an ongoing basis. We would like to explore solutions which can build on the baseline of understanding we already have, and then both inform our future policy approach and ultimately help us design a system in which local providers understand demand in the communities they serve, and families can access local school age childcare which meets their needs. Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved https://www.civtechalliance.org/civtech-6-how-to-apply Lot 1: CivTech’s mission is to drive daring and innovation in the public sector by collaboratively solving challenges that make people’s lives better – and in doing so create generations of sustainable, high growth businesses. CivTech brings together public sector expertise and private sector innovation to solve real problems, develop new products, and deliver better, faster and easier services for everyone. Central to the approach is co-production with the citizen. Part of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, CivTech’s approach is helping transform public sector engagement with tech and innovation, delivering significant benefits to public services, producing genuine uplifts for the Scottish economy - and along the way, making lives better. Across the country there are problems public sector organisations would like to solve and in the current environment the need for smart, efficient and effective products has never been greater. The Scottish Government is aware innovation is a good way to create them and is committed to ensuring a large part of its tech spend goes to smaller, innovative businesses. This is where CivTech comes in. The CivTech Innovation Flow is designed to create products as quickly and effectively as possible, and uses a true Accelerator model at the heart of its Innovation Flow model. For you – whether you’re an individual, team or company – it’s an opportunity to take on a Challenge, solve it, and win contracts with a blue-chip public sector organisation. You’ll build a product, and a business to take it as far as possible. Because here’s the kicker: the Challenges we issue aren’t ‘single organisation’ problems – most exist worldwide. In short: Open Challenges are set. Any organisation, team or individual can respond. Applications are assessed, and shortlisted proposals go into an Exploration Stage where they’re developed further [for which participating applicants are paid]. The best go through to the Accelerator – a period of intensive work to create the solution, and through CivTech’s unique business workshop system, a business capable of taking the product to the world. Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved https://www.civtechalliance.org/civtech-6-how-to-apply