1. London Workshop: 14th October
LG Inform Plus
London Workshop: 14th October
Ian Carbutt: LG Inform Programme Manager
Jonathan Evans: Senior Analyst Research Team
Rose Pycock: Data Analyst Health and Care Programme
Steven Messer: Engagement Manager. Porism Ltd
Date
October 2016

2. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

3. Objectives for the workshop
Demonstrate key functionality
Show ready made features and reports available
Look at building your own reports.
Using the tools
‘Playtime’
What’s next?
Just released/coming soon
Further Support
What we would like to do today. Demonstrate and discuss.

4. Part– 1 (the building blocks)
The Landing Page
Tools & content available
Searching for available reports
Out of the box
LGA Research Reports

5. Part – 2 (Light touch use)
Creating simple components
Tables, Bar charts, Maps
Building reports
Generating your own content
Creating dynamic text
The Text Token Editor

6. Part – 3 (Advanced features)
Creating New Neighbourhoods
Building new unofficial Geographies
Applying these to your reports
Application programmable interface (API)
Direct data feed via to local applications
Data Tools

7. Part – 4 (Management Information)
Information Standards
Records retention guidance tool
Powers & Duties guidance tool
Open data tools
LG Inform
Help and Support

8. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

9. Part– 1 (the building blocks)
The Landing Page
Tools & content available
Searching for available reports
Out of the box
LGA Research Reports

10. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

11. Part – 2 (Light touch use)
Creating simple components
Tables, Bar charts, Maps
Building reports
Generating your own content
Creating dynamic text
The Text Token Editor

12. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

13. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

14. Part – 3 (Advanced features)
Creating New Neighbourhoods
Building new unofficial Geographies
Applying these to your reports
Application programmable interface (API)
Direct data feed via to local applications
Data Tools

15. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

16. Part – 4 (Management Information)
Information Standards
Records retention guidance tool
Powers & Duties guidance tool
Open data tools
LG Inform
Help and Support

17. LG Inform is…
…the LGA’s free data benchmarking service, which presents you with up-to-date published data about your local area and the performance of your council.

18. What is LG Inform?
Single point of access to wide range of data in a ‘ready to use’ format
Across the whole spectrum of services
Reports
Series of ready made reports
Report building tools for presentation and/or investigation
supports comparison and review over time
Releasing councils from gathering data
More time to make use of the information!
Developed for councils, but is accessible by the public
LG Inform presents data at local authority area level - combination of single tier, county and district level data.
Rather than presenting data in spreadsheets, it presents it in easier to understand charts, tables and dashboards; and provides a comparison with other authorities (that the user can choose).
Importantly, LG Inform releases authorities from hours spent searching for the most up to date information every time they want to view their data against others’. An action that would otherwise be repeated 353 times over for each authority. This leaves them more time to do the important work of analysing what the data tells them and why.

19. What Data is Available? Demographic Services Contextual Outcomes
Expenditure
LG Inform brings together a range of data about local government services, financial information, and includes demographic and contextual data about an area.
Demographic data – such as age and ethnicity of the population
Data related to local government services – such as road conditions, recycling rates, achievement of five or more GCSEs
Contextual data – such as crime data and health data, like mortality statistics and obesity levels
Financial data – such as the amount the council spends in the local area on education, or on planning
Outcomes

20. Are Councils using LG Inform?
All councils: 4,200 registered users
875,000 hits
57,000 unique visitors
LG Inform case studies
Risk Management & Benchmarking
Transparency: Embedding
Underpinning council reporting frameworks
Saving resources and Direct data feed (API)
140 authorities in our local benchmarking club
Sharing data quarterly
Yes!
Nearly all councils are making use of the full functionality of LG Inform, by registering. This allows them to build and share reports using the data, as well as using the LG Inform Local Benchmarking Club. However, now it is open to the public, councils often don’t sign in to use LG Inform, but use the public site to quickly access data and information about their area. Since it’s launch, it has had over 850,000 hits, from over 50,000 unique visitors.
A number of case studies are available to demonstrate the need and use of LG inform: saving effort, strategic management and transparency.
Some authorities have taken the opportunity to build reports which they embed into their sites (and which are automatically updated when the LGA updates LG Inform). Others simply use the data and charts that they drop into their own reports (and supplement it with other information). Either way, local authorities report big time and resource savings.
Finally, 120 authorities are now involved in the LGA’s local benchmarking club.  We collect local data directly from councils. It’s a strictly voluntary process and the ambition is, where appropriate, to reduce the sector’s reliance on centrally-collected nationally published data: either through collecting useful new data items which aren’t collected elsewhere, or by providing more timely access to data which is collected centrally but not published quickly.

21. Benchmarking: getting involved
Benchmarking club posting dates:  
Q2 2016/17 – collection window opens 13 October and closes 10 November
Q3 2016/17 – collection window opens 12 January and closes 9 February
Q4 2016/17 – collection window opens 13 April and closes 11 May
Further information
Useful details.

22. Agenda Welcome and Objectives Part 1 - The Building Blocks
Part 2 - Light Touch Use
Lunch
Part 3 - Advanced Features
Part 4 - Management Information
Wrap up

23. What’s New in LG Inform
Enhanced percentage change. Additional time periods
Virtual metrics
Embed flexibility
Basic ‘Outliers’ report
Text token editor
Automatic sources ‘Reference’ table
Copy and convert any component
Predominance maps
Full details here:
What next? Further information?

24. ‘Coming Soon’ in LG Inform Plus
Standard Report
Cloud Search
‘Best Fit’: boundary changes
More Neighbourhoods: NPAs
Point data uploader
Embed code
How did we do? What next? Further information?

25. Key Information LG Inform: www.lginform.local.gov.uk Help and support:
Log-in assistance:
Tech Support:
General enquiries:
LG Inform Knowledge Hub Group
Useful details.

26. Key Information LG Inform Plus is here:
For subscriptions information go here:
Metrics downloaded from here:
Subscribe to a monthly newsletter
Useful details.

27. Thank you
Have a safe trip home!