Newsletter, March 2018 No Images? Click here Hi there, In this month's newsletter, you can find
Record of Processing Activity (RoPA) toolWith the 25th May deadline for GDPR approaching, our new tool for councils to generate and maintain a Record of Processing Activity (RoPA) goes live at the start of April. The RoPA is a log of all datasets which contain personal information processed or collected by an organisation. The log will detail the legal basis for holding, processing and sharing data; in addition to other tips provided by the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office). The tool will be pre-populated with more than 1,700 types of record that councils and fire authorities might retain for legal and business reasons. Through our LG Inform Plus subscription, the RoPA functionality will let you:
Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) with the Services ListReigate & Banstead Council has enhanced its staffed telephone switchboard with an automated service. Part of the setup required them to create a directory of all services and functions, from which enquirers could select. They used the Local Government Services List to establish a list of services which they localised to their own situation. “IVR has been live since October and so far has reduced phone calls to the customer contact team by nearly 45%. Low value calls have been removed, waiting times reduced and the overall cost of contact lowered. This supports the other initiatives that form our Channel Shift strategy. IVR has become a breakthrough project due to raising awareness of the value and importance of data in driving our public services.” For further details contact Robert Steele or Sandra Clews, or download a longer news article here. Personal Wellbeing in your areaThis new LG Inform report provides an overview of the four key measures of ‘self-reported personal wellbeing’ from the ONS Annual Population Survey. The measures are:
An outline of key wider determinants of wellbeing from other LG Inform datasets is also included at the end of the report. Boundary changes and info packs for the May electionsIf your council has elections coming up in May, you may wish to prepare information packs in readiness for the arrival of new councillors. This case study from Breckland and South Holland shows how they used LG Inform Plus to create ward member infopacks. Where there are boundary changes, we have loaded the new pre-operative wards into Natural Neighbourhoods and prepared metrics for them. Click on the following links to see the new wards for Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. You can also run your existing LG Inform Plus reports against the new areas to show the different data right now, by just selecting 'Pre-operative ward' from the top dropdowns. Pre-operative wards will be converted to official wards after the elections. Guidance on creating and maintaining open standardsThe LGA’s technical partners have been working with the Open Data Institute to pass on our experience of helping standardise local datasets over the past decade. They’ve now published online guidance on Creating and maintaining open standards. The pages make lots of references to the LGA’s open data tools and show how they might be used. Help make LG Inform betterWe are constantly trying to make LG Inform better and more useful, but we need your help! You have recently received an email from James Harman at the LGA, asking you to complete a survey on your experience of using the service. We'd appreciate it if you could check your inboxes, click on your unique link and let us know what you think as soon as convenient. Even if you don’t currently use LG Inform, completing the survey will help us understand how we might provide value to you in the future. All responses will be treated confidentially. Information will be aggregated, and no individual or authority will be identified in any publications without your consent. Identifiable information may be used internally within the LGA. If you have any questions, comments or issues, please do not hesitate to contact James.Harman@local.gov.uk. Training and eventsAre you interested in learning more about LG Inform or LG Inform Plus? If so, why not sign up for our online training sessions? They're quick, informative and easily accessible from the comfort of your own desk. You will be sent a phone number to join a conference call and a URL to let you view our computer screen, then one of our experienced data analysts will run through the site live and show you how it works in practise. Find out about upcoming online training sessions here, or click on any subject name to download a PDF guide. Email lginform@local.gov.uk to sign up for any of the available sessions. Alternatively, you can book your place on one of our popular training days using the links below. You can learn what's available, how to use the tools, and ask us any questions you may have.
We are always happy to visit councils to provide our training sessions. If your council would be interested in hosting an event, please contact us at lginform@local.gov.uk As ever, we're always interested to hear your ideas for improving our services and would love to hear from you, so don't hesitate to get in touch by replying to this newsletter. |