Hi there,

Happy new year! We kick off 2016 with an all-new tool added to LG Inform Plus, some new reports from LG Inform, and details of a new series of training events. 

Please do join @LGInform and @LGInformPlus on Twitter and let us know what you're up to, we'd love to hear your stories.

New features to help local authorities broaden their horizons

It's no secret that evidence-led insights can help turn things around for a community. Indeed, it's something we promote as often as possible, and the data that lies behind our tools can help authorities find who or what needs help most. But, until now, the tools we offer have been limited to areas within an authority.

Devolution is a considerably hot topic, and many councils are exploring combined authorities, sharing services between themselves to best serve their immediate public. With this and many other solutions in mind, we've updated Natural Neighbourhoods, allowing you to build cross-boundary areas and see the aggregated data underneath. 

Take Crystal Palace for example, considered by its inhabitants to be a town in south London...but with no official recognition. The town, home to hundreds of people and businesses, straddles the borders of five London boroughs, its residents' needs at risk of being overlooked.

Having been built in Natural Neighbourhoods, the neighbourhood planning group in Crystal Palace have access to details about the demography of their area and can find opportunities to develop the town.

We've also loaded heaps of other 'area types', such as clinical commissioning groups and combined authorities, meaning you can run reports and feed live data into apps and websites. And for anyone interested in open data, any area you create will be published for all to access and use. Other types of area are scheduled to be loaded soon, but feel free to add your own.

Take a look at the Natural Neighbourhoods update now, and don't hesitate to ask us about any queries you may have.

Crime and disorder

Crime and disorder, and the perception of crime, are key factors in influencing quality of life. This report provides an overview of the different types of police recorded crime for a selected authority and comparison group. The report is updated each quarter with data taken from the police recorded crime survey. This report is one of a series of reports in LG Inform based on a single collection; the aim is to provide users with quick and easy access to all the metrics contained within the collection and present them in a variety of charts, tables and maps. 

For any more details or if you have any questions, please get in touch.

Lots of new IMD reports

Following on from our announcement in November’s newsletter, a further fifteen Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) reports have been published in LG Inform Plus for the benefit of subscribers. There is a ward summary report for each of the seven IMD domains, six sub-domains and two supplementary indices. Each report shows, for a chosen authority, the score for each ward, together with details of the ten most/least deprived wards, and a map showing IMD distribution. Parallel reports for LSOAs will follow soon.

View all of the reports now, or see a sample report, and for more information, please contact stephen.richards@local.gov.uk.

Delayed transfers of care

The LGA’s Research and Information team has compiled a range of helpful data on delayed transfers of care to support councils in understanding the latest situation locally. The reports allow you to look at data nationally, by council or region and compare this to other councils and regions.

The data is taken from the monthly statistics on delayed transfers of care published by NHS England. These are drawn from the Monthly Situation Report which collects data on the number of patients delayed on the last Thursday of each month and the total delayed days during the month for all patients delayed throughout the month. This collection includes data by local authority, and split by the agency responsible for the delay (NHS, social services or both), type of care that the patient receives (acute or non-acute) and reason for delay. This data is available to view and compare in LG Inform.

This summary report highlights some of the key measures for delayed transfers of care, focusing on your selected local authority or region. Included in the report are links to all the measures taken from this data source. Using the links provided you can view an ‘in detail’ report for a single measure, allowing you to compare your local authority with selected others over time.

Benchmarking club

We are starting the next quarter's collection of local data for LG Inform and would like to welcome authorities to get involved. Simply send us an email and we'll get the process started for you. We are looking at increasing the number of metrics that councils can provide data for, if they would like to, in the next quarter. Metrics that have been voted for the most on the Knowledge Hub are long- and short-term sickness absence. Sign in to LG Inform now and take a look at the last four quarter's report to see what's been happening so far.
 
We are going to be running a hotseat (online meeting) via the Knowledge Hub on 17 March, more details and how you can join in will be published in the next couple of weeks.

Training events

There's still some spaces left on our ever-popular training events, where you can learn what's available, how to use the tools, and ask us any questions you may have. You'll hear about both LG Inform and LG Inform Plus, and the powerhouse behind the tools: our direct data feed (API).

Tuesday 15 March, Manchester
Friday 22 April, London