Dr Tom Smith, Director, Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI)

Tom is co-founder and Director of Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI), and leads on OCSI projects to develop and analyse the evidence base for policy making at local, regional and national levels. OCSI is a ‘spinout consultancy’ from the University of Oxford Social Disadvantage Research Centre (SDRC), internationally recognised for its research into deprivation and social policy, developing the Index of Multiple Deprivation, for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, South Africa, etc.

Recent OCSI projects include work with the Department of Communities and Local Government, Audit Commission, Local Government Association, Improvement and Development Agency to identify how national and regional organisations can best support local authority and strategic partnership research and intelligence teams; developing new ways of measuring and highlighting deprivation in (small) rural areas with Norfolk County Council; needs analysis for London Councils to target Voluntary Group funding across the capital; and identifying and assessing Local Area Agreement performance indicators for the Department of Communities and Local Government. Tom is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, and has been involved in developing and interpreting the evidence base across a wide range of policy areas, working with a variety of organisations from academic, public and commercial sectors, for more than 15 years.