Newsletter, April 2018 No Images? Click here Hi there, In this month's newsletter, you can find
Record of Processing Activity (RoPA) tool now live!Our new Record of Processing Activity tool is now live for subscribing users, as an extension to our existing records retention tool. This allows you to save full data processing details alongside any of the record types specified in the tool, export them for offline use and generate customised privacy notices. For more information about how it can help you with your GDPR obligations, click the button below to browse our guidance, including a full PDF guide and video walkthrough. Records Retention schedules updatedAlongside the launch of RoPA, we’ve also performed a full update of the retention data held as part of our Records Retention tool with the help of Kent County Council - this includes 158 new record types and 110 new powers or duties. As of this update, we now offer 1,700+ retention schedules. Key new Acts of Parliament were:
Subscribed authorities can view or download the retention data here in our tool, filtering by organisation type and business function. Now available on LG Inform - Pyramid chartsPyramid charts are now available for all users with access to the LG Inform report builder, alongside the pre-existing chart types. They can be used to compare any two metrics which share the same breakdown. To help you get started, we've produced this PDF walkthrough showing the steps of creating a chart. You can use the new pyramid charts with last month's ONS revised mid-year population estimates, covering mid-2012 to mid-2016, to explore your population by age and gender. If you would like to see how your area stacks up, take a look at our summary demographic report, which includes an age and gender pyramid chart for every authority in the country. The age profile of an area’s population is a key consideration in the running of public services, particularly in relation to the ratio of dependants to working age population. For example, following these revisions, West Somerset had the highest old age dependency ratio (ratio of people older than 64, to the working-age population, those ages 16-64), at around 60 people over the age of 65 per 100 aged 16-64. At the other end is Barking and Dagenham which had the highest child age dependency ratio (ratio of people under the age of 16, to the working age population) at around 43 under 16’s per 100 aged 16-64. Assessing the Data maturity of your councilAnother exciting new development coming up: our self-assessment tool for councils to review their treatment of data. Drawing on the report Wise Council: Insights from the cutting edge of data-driven local government by Nesta and the LGA, the tool asks you questions about data use, management, skills, governance and culture. Scores derived from answers are then compared anonymously across the council and with other councils. Based on these calculations, the tool gives tips on best practice, example case studies and links to additional resources. Contact us if you’d like to join the prototype testing stage and give us some early feedback, or if you’d like to be notified as soon as it's released live. LGA Research: Children in Need and Care reportWe are excited to be publishing a new consultation report that brings together a range of data based on Children’s Social Care statistics. You can access the report here. The report aims to provide comprehensive trend and benchmarking information based on the most up-to-date published data and can be run by local authorities with little input from themselves, similar to the local area SEND report published last year. The report is aimed at data and performance teams within local authorities, who can use the tool to facilitate discussions about their authority’s relative performance. It also has the potential to supplement councils’ own annual reporting. In addition, LG Inform users with a working knowledge of how to build reports will be able to adapt the template version to meet their specific needs. Fire benchmarking Club in LG InformWe have just opened the fourth quarter collection of the Fire benchmarking club. Authorities have until 4th May to submit their data, after which we will issue a year-end report to participants. Click here for more details about the club. This voluntary free club allows users to put their own data in to LG Inform against 24 metrics chosen by participants in the club. We have written a pre-populated report that signed in users can access. Users can run the reports for whichever group of authorities best meets their needs. We can add in any other display groups to the system and are open to adding additional metrics if this proves popular, so please get in touch if you would like more information about this Finding the right metrics for youBetween LG Inform and LG Inform Plus users can now access more than 8,000 live metric types with literally millions of values. Sometimes finding what you need can be elusive and some data can be discontinued or replaced. So, if you need help finding the metrics and data you need, you can email us directly or if mailing is not enough, we offer a specialist consultancy service to work with you. 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. |