With Project Flo, Thunk showed how data can be transformed into compelling narratives. The enthusiasm and quality of the outputs were amazing and aligned perfectly with our core objectives.
Mark Roberts, Digital Officer, Ministry of Justice
Turning data into stories that drive informed decisions faster
Government data was buried in static reports no one had time to read. We built a platform that lets policy teams turn datasets into narrative, without a designer or analyst in the loop.
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Justice is the government department responsible for courts, prisons, probation and legal policy in England and Wales.
Policy decisions get made on evidence, in theory. In practice the evidence arrives as a static report, and the people who need it read the first page.
Project Flo turns a dataset into a narrative a non-specialist can follow, without an analyst or a designer in the loop.
Before
The department was not short of data, or of people who could analyse it. What it produced was reports that assumed a reader with time and technical fluency, and most of the intended audience had neither.
The bottleneck wasn’t the data. It was that every piece of communication needed an analyst and a designer, and both were booked for months, so most data stories were never made at all.
Complex datasets arrived as static reports that non-technical readers disengaged from
Teams knew dashboards weren't working but had no capacity to build anything better
Nothing was consistent, so a story built for one audience couldn't be reused for another
People wanted to work differently and had no idea where to start
After
The project didn’t just produce a platform. It changed how the MoJ thinks about data as a product. Not evidence to be filed, but a product with an audience.
Project Flo is a modular web platform that uses AI-assisted workflows to turn a structured dataset into a contextual story. A policy lead can build one without outside help.
Data storytelling available to policy teams and frontline communicators directly
Interactive templates, editorial support and glossary tools built for non-technical users
A scalable model for government data storytelling that other departments could adopt
A roadmap for automation, integration and internal training
What we did
01
Started with how people actually worked.
Data producers, analysts and policy leads, to find where the handovers broke down rather than where the tools did.
02
Built with live MoJ data.
Real datasets from the start, so the flows were tested against actual complexity rather than a tidy sample.
03
Designed for the non-specialist.
Templates, editorial scaffolding and a glossary, so the person using it doesn't need to be the person who understands the data.
04
Scoped what comes after.
Automation, integration and training, so Flo could become a way of working rather than a tool somebody piloted.
Our process for Ministry of Justice
A disciplined hunt for value — the structure to explore the unknown without the usual cost of getting it wrong.
Small ways to break the deadlock. Yes, even yours.
External perspective
1-hour (remote)
Bring us the thing everyone in your organisation disagrees about. We'll tell you what we'd do, whether that involves us or not.
First move
1-day (in person)
One day won't solve everything, but it'll tell you exactly where to start. 'Too many ideas' become one clear plan with the evidence to back it.