The Education Authority (EA) has won ‘Data Transformation of the Year’ and ‘Public Sector Organisation of the Year’ at the prestigious British Data Awards 2025, recognising the transformative impact of its digital platform, EA Connect.
The British Data Awards celebrate the UK’s most innovative data-driven organisations and a record 448 entries were submitted from FTSE 100 companies, start-ups, government departments, essential not-for-profits, and everything in between.
EA Connect was developed by the EdIS Programme in partnership with Version 1, parents, schools and staff, with dashboards and insights designed and delivered by EA’s Data Analytics and Insights Team. The system has revolutionised how data is collected, processed, and analysed across multiple EA services in Northern Ireland.
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By unifying fragmented systems into a single, scalable platform, EA Connect has eliminated duplication, reduced delays, and enabled real-time decision-making; all with the goal of improving the experiences of children and young people, parents and carers, school staff and EA services.
Francine Hillemand, EA Connect Lead said: “This industry recognition is a well-deserved acknowledgement of the dedication and hard work from our teams and partners who are using data to deliver better outcomes for families and schools. These awards validate EA Connect as not just a user friendly, high quality digital platform, but one which is transformative in-service delivery and importantly a blueprint for how public services can be transformed through data.”
Since its launch, EA Connect has delivered measurable improvements:
· 170,000 applications submitted in 2024, eliminating over 500,000 paper documents annually
· 54% increase in parental engagement
· 400,000+ documents securely uploaded, reducing errors and delays
· SEN Annual Reviews digitised for over 66,000 children
· Transport processing success rate increased to 97%
· Free School Meals & Uniform Grant processing time reduced by 88% (from 24 days to just 3).
Deep analytical insights from EA Connect help streamline operational delivery and inform strategic planning for SEN placements, admissions, free school meals and transport services.
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All four entries, namely EA Connect, Time Allocation Modelling (led by the Educational Psychology Service and the Data Analytics team), Carbon Capture Project (led by the Digital Transformation team), and See What I’m Saying (led by ICT Projects and the Sensory Service), made it to the ‘finalist’ stage of the British Data Awards.
This year marks the third consecutive year that the EA Data Analytics and Insights Team has won at the British Data Awards and is testament to the incredible work and collaboration across a wide range of EA teams and services.
Laura Moore, Data Analytics and Insights Manager, said:
“Winning at the British Data Awards three years in a row is extremely impressive, demonstrating our passion for excellence. Well done to all involved, and hopefully this inspires us all to keep collaborating to make the most of our data for children and young people!” For more information about the awards, visit https://predatech.co.uk/british-data-awards .
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