Problem-solving for problem-solving: Data analytics to identify families for service intervention

Edwards, R., Gillies, V. and Gorin, S. 2022. Problem-solving for problem-solving: Data analytics to identify families for service intervention. Critical Social Policy. 47 (2), pp. 265-284. https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183211020294

TitleProblem-solving for problem-solving: Data analytics to identify families for service intervention
TypeJournal article
AuthorsEdwards, R., Gillies, V. and Gorin, S.
AbstractThe article draws on Bacchi’s ideas about problematisation (2020) and links to technological solutionism as governing logics of our age, to explore the double-faceted problem-solving logic operating in the UK family policy and early intervention field. Families with certain characteristics are identified as problematic, and local authorities are tasked with intervening to fix that social problem. Local authorities thus need to identify these families for problem-solving intervention, and data analytics companies will solve that problem for them. In the article, we identify discourses of transmitted deprivation and anti-social behaviour in families and the accompanying costly public sector burden as characteristics that produce families as social problems, and discursive themes around delivering powerful knowledge, timeliness and economic efficiently in data analytic companies’ problem solving claims for their data linkage and predictive analytics systems. These discursive rationales undergird the double-faceted problem-solving for problem-solving logic that directs attention away from complex structural causes.
Keywordsfamilies and early intervention, predictive analytics, problem-solving, social problems, technological solutionism
JournalCritical Social Policy
Journal citation47 (2), pp. 265-284
ISSN0261-0183
1461-703X
Year2022
PublisherSage
Publisher's version
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access Level
Open (open metadata and files)
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183211020294
Web address (URL)https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02610183211020294
Publication dates
Published02 Jun 2021
Published in print2022

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