ICS Intelligence Function Guidance Toolkit

This toolkit accompanies NHSE guidance that describes what an ICS intelligence function should aim to do and what an emerging, developing and maturing intelligence function should look like. It has been developed for NHSE by the Strategy Unit with additional advisory input from the Nuffield Trust.

This toolkit is designed to be a source of ideas, inspiration and practical advice that an ICS can use when considering how to develop its intelligence function; it is a curated set of materials, kept deliberately succinct to make it easy to translate into system plans. The materials are all seen as important and useful. None, however, are prescribed. They are instead for ICSs to take and use for their own purposes in their own context. The toolkit cross-references that national guidance by indicating how the resources in section 4 relate to the component categories used in the guidance. These are:

• Purpose: What should your intelligence function aim to do?
• Scope: What should it include and what should it not include?
• Governance: How should it be organised and how can it effectively influence your system’s activities?
• Data and analysis: What data categories should it be able to access and how will it ensure this data is available to users?
• Scale: Where should analytical capacity and capability be places in a system?
• Multidisciplinary teams: What skills will the intelligence function need?
• Resourcing and development: How will it ensure these skills are available and enhanced?