Hi there,

Spring has sprung which means there's plenty of growth happening...and not just in the gardens and woods! We're also placing a lot of energy into growing and expanding the capabilities of our tools (take a look at our new brochure) as well as uploading plenty of new datasets. Here's what we've been up to recently.

Deprivation at a local level

You might have come across our ward-level indices of multiple deprivation (IMD) data through LG Inform Plus in recent months, but now it's available for free through LG Inform too.

A new report has been published, allowing you to compare overall deprivation for a chosen authority with that of others. It also shows the proportion of LSOAs which are in the ten per cent most deprived LSOAs nationally; the proportion of LSOAs which are in each decile of deprivation nationally; and the IMD scores for each of the IMD’s seven domains, six sub-domains and two supplementary indices.

For more information, please contact Stephen Richards.

Improving citizens' lives through data

Cabinet Office has published a consultation about enabling information-sharing between public authorities to improve the lives of citizens and support decisions on the economy and society. It covers three themes: 

• improving public services,
• addressing fraud and debt, and
• allowing use of data for research and official statistics.

The LGA welcomes views from local authorities on the themes and their sub-areas by 8 April to help us prepare a response for submission on 22 April 2016. Please join the discussion on KHub or email the LGA Transparency team with your comments. You can view the consultation and its supporting documents on GOV.UK.

Healthy Living Pharmacies data added

Data sourced from an internal survey of pharmacies by Public Health England to determine their Healthy Living accreditation status is now available on LG Inform and LG Inform Plus.

The locations of all English Healthy Living Pharmacies, and those in the process of Healthy Living accreditation, can now be mapped in LG Inform Plus at a range of geographies including authority level, CCG level and England-wide. A further breakdown is available by smaller areas such as wards, MSOAs or LSOAs and other amenities, such as GP surgeries, dental surgeries and care homes, can be shown also. Read more about the benefits of subscription to LG Inform Plus.

The data is also available as metrics in LG Inform, representing the number of Healthy Living Pharmacies per 10,000 population and pharmacies in the process of Healthy Living accreditation per 10,000 population. All users can view the data for any local authority area and a chosen comparison group. Users can create charts, maps and tables using this data, as well as full reports combining other related metrics from the vast array available on the system.

Want to join our Local Benchmarking Club?

Originally started to give councils alternative or more timely data beyond nationally published datasets, the ever-popular Benchmarking Club is looking for more authorities to participate. 

We'll be running an online meeting on 21 April 2016, 12–2 p.m., to share more details and answer any questions you may have. There will also be presentations, videos and interviews with the LG Inform team – put the date in your diary!

Register your interest by liking this post on KHub, and feel free to submit questions or comments in advance if you can't make it on the day. You can also view the Q3 2015/16 submissions results.

Uploading local metrics to the tools

We had a really busy and positive meeting about local metrics recently, with 38 councils represented, in which we discussed ideas for allowing local authorities to upload data to LG Inform and LG Inform Plus. The team are now giving thought to all the inputs and ideas, and we are working on a paper of proposals to consider how we might specify, fund and move this exciting capability forward.

We have written up all the many comments, inputs and ideas to the five question areas we considered, which you're welcome to read. Please do share your thoughts and comments on the KHub discussion and with interested colleagues too.