LG Inform Plus Learning Day Training Session

Editor's Notes

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• #13: This is the landing page for LG Inform: http://lginform.local.gov.uk A brief note about LG Inform can be viewed Public users will be able to search for information about their authority by entering their postcode or authority. A selection here will alter the 6 dials: see next slide The tabs Search and About LG Inform will be discussed later.
• #152: This shows the properties of an area type. All of this is open data that can be viewed on the web or by a computer. An area type should normally not reference a specific area, it should be generic enough to use for many areas.
• #153: This shows the properties of an area. Again all of this is open data that can be added by anyone. The creator of an area is responsible for it with guidance from the Support team. Anyone (not just the creator) can add links from an area to associated documents on the Web.
• #154: Here are links to some examples for pre-existing official areas and for new areas that are official (and published by a government organisation) or unofficial. Hovering over an area on a map shows all the selected areas under the cursor.
• #155: The same selection controls apply to reports as to neighbourhoods. Here are some links to open standard reports for: Specific areas Breakdowns of specific areas by a given area type There are a few differences between what is available for neighbourhoods and for reprots.
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• #237: Records retention guidance and powers & duties guidance are linked to the Local Government Service List (LGSL) and the Internal Service List which are part of esd-standards. The list of powers & duties is published as a standard in it’s own right – freely available. Both records retention guidance and powers & duties guidance can be filtered by function or service. In addition the records retention guidance can be filtered by web site navigation terms as defined in the Local Government Navigation List (LGNL). When you look at any of the lists in esd-standards a spanner icon displayed beside a term tells you that there are tools linked to this term. In most cases that means there is either retention guidance, powers & duties guidance or both. The ‘Tools’ option on the menu takes you to the tools page where you can choose what you want to look at. More details on how to do this are given later in the presentation.
• #242: From the main ‘Records retention’ page you can filter the guidance you see by: Changing the selections in the drop down lists – by function (which is what we can see now as that is where we accessed the tool from), by web navigation, by external service or by internal service. Once you change the first box the options available in the lower boxes change according to your selection – likewise for the third and fourth drop downs once you have chosen from the one above. The fourth box contains services – you can choose from there to just see retention information for a single service. You can also filter the guidance displayed to be just legal requirements or just business requirements – the default is to show both. The list of guidance shows the service the guidance relates to, the type of records the guidance refers to and whether or not the retention requirements are legal (denoted by a gavel) or business (denoted by a briefcase) To see the detailed guidance you need to click on the records description. Note that clicking on the service number or name will take you to the detail of that service. From this page there are also links to download all the guidance contained in the list either: as a csv file – which can be read into a spreadsheet or potentially your own database as an rtf file which you can read into MS Word and format as you need If you have accessed the Records retention tool from the esd-standards pages (function, service or web navigation term) the filter criteria on the top of the page are set to be the term you accessed the tool from.
• #243: If you prefer just to search for guidance related to a topic then rather than going through the lists you can use the ‘search’ option. Simply key your search term (planning was used in the example above) to find guidance where: The search term is in the service name The search term is in the records description
• #244: For each set of guidance you can see the following: Service name Records description Service number (as a link to details of the service) Do the records contain personal information? Impact level if the information contained in the records were to be released Is the retention a legal or business requirement? If a legal requirement a hyperlink to the legislation determining the retention period Should the records be retained permanently? Should the records be offered to archives once the retention period ends? Retention period (if not permanent). The retention period includes the time/event from which you need to keep the records and how long they need to be kept for. For some guidance there are also notes which might, for example, identify the guidance as a minimum period, point to additional legislation or advise that the records must be destroyed at the end of the retention period. On the detail page there is also the URI describing the retention guidance and a link which provides a SPARQL database query which will provide you with an electronic version of the guidance.
• #245: Guidance can be downloaded in either csv format (comma separated value) which can be read by spreadsheet software such as MS Excel or in rtf (rich text file) format which can be opened in word processing software such as MS Word. Options to download in either format are available after you have selected the records you are interested in (by filter, search or via esd-standards).
• #246: You can use the ‘data’ option to run a direct query on the SPARQL database to download data from the retention guidance database. Example queries and guidance on doing this are provided.
• #247: Before you start using the retention guidance we recommend you read the ‘Introduction’ page which tells you about where the guidance came from, how and why you might use it and explains how the guidance is structured. If you have a question when you are using the guidance it may be answered by our FAQs – available on the help page. If not you can either email support (support@esd.org.uk) or you can leave a comment on the page which will be answered by the support team and may also be answered by other users.
• #250: The list of powers and duties is freely available to all from esd standards. The detailed guidance – which includes links to the legislation, types of authority the power/duty applies to and other information is only available to LG Inform Plus subscribers to browse online and download.
• #252: From the main ‘Powers and duties’ page you can filter the guidance you see by: Changing the selections in the drop down lists – by function (which is what we can see now as that is where we accessed the tool from), by external service or by internal service. Once you change the first box the options available in the lower boxes change according to your selection – likewise for the third and fourth drop downs once you have chosen from the one above. The fourth box contains services – you can choose from there to just see powers/dutiesfor a single service. You can also filter the guidance displayed to be: Just powers or just duties– the default is to show both Just English or just Welsh powers and duties – both by default Type of authority which to which the power/duty applies The list of guidance shows the title of the power/duty, whether it is a power or duty and whether or not the power/duty applies to English and/or Welsh authorities. To see the detailed guidance you need to click on the power/duty title. From this page there are also links to download all the guidance contained in the list either: as a csv file – which can be read into a spreadsheet or potentially your own database as an rtf file which you can read into MS Word and format as you need If you have accessed the powers and duties tool from the esd-standards pages (function or service) the filter criteria on the top of the page are set to be the term you accessed the tool from.
• #253: If you prefer just to search for guidance related to a topic then rather than going through the lists you can use the ‘search’ option. Simply key your search term (planning was used in the example above) to find guidance where: The search term is in the service name or description of one of the services to which the power/duty relates The search term is in the powers and duties title
• #254: For each set of guidance you can see the following: Power/duty title Power/duty description Legislation which allows/requires the power/duty – with link to legislation.gov.uk where available Notes on legislation including other relevant acts/SIs The date from which the power/duty applied (and the date from which it was no longer applicable if legislation has changed). None have an end date at present. The risk category of the power/duty (i.e. how important it is) The types of authority to which the power/duty applies Services which are delivered as a result of the power/duty and the functions to which those services belong On the detail page there is also a link which provides a SPARQL database query which will provide you with an electronic version of the power/duty.
• #255: Powers and duties can be downloaded in either csv format (comma separated value) which can be read by spreadsheet software such as MS Excel or in rtf (rich text file) format which can be opened in word processing software such as MS Word. Options to download in either format are available after you have selected the powers/duties you are interested in (by filter, search or via esd-standards).
• #256: You can use the ‘data’ option to run a direct query on the SPARQL database to download data from the powers and duties database. Example queries and guidance on doing this are provided.
• #257: Before you start using the powers and duties guidance we recommend you read the ‘Introduction’ page which tells you about where the guidance came from, how and why you might use it and explains how the guidance is structured. If you have a question when you are using the guidance it may be answered by our FAQs – available on the help page. If not you can either email support (support@esd.org.uk) or you can leave a comment on the page which will be answered by the support team and may also be answered by other users.
• #259: Local government is different from central government when it comes to providing open data in that hundreds of councils provide the same type of data. It helps councils to be able to compare with one another. We want to encourage innovators (eg SMEs, interest groups) to develop applications that make use of the data, but it is not cost-effective for them to do so differently for every council. Hence standard means or offered for referring to elements of data and standard ways of sharing them. Little is mandated but you make it easier for others to consume your data of you use the same references and same formats as other councils.
• #260: At a national level data.gov.uk provides a loosely indexed catalogue of open data sets from public organisations, including local authorities. The Open Data Institute also has a catalogue of datasets that have been self-certified as “open”. Local open datasets tend to be similar across many councils so, in local government, we are striving to have some more structure. This means that: Each council can draw on work of others People can link, compare and combine datasets from many councils Within our Open data site we catalogue by function and service all local datasets that are inventorised in a standard way by councils and ones coming from the local open data incentive scheme. We list the datasets with links to the actual data. We aggregate data from different councils that uses the same tabular format, as defined by its schema. We encourage use of standard classifications, defined by URI sets, so everyone is using the same definitions and we can link across different datasets.
• #261: The Open data User Group has selected datasets that are commonly requested. We’ve tried to make it as simple as possible for councils to provide the dataset BUT there must be sufficient data to be useful to consumers AND it must be possible for developers to aggregate meaningfully across datasets from all councils. So we expect them to be able to produce a single aggregated dataset for each of the three themes. They can then develop applications that make the data useful to citizens.
• #262: The latest additions to the Local Government Inform Plus toolset is a whole host of search tools, inventory management and schemas/datasets harvesting under the “open data” section
• #263: Here’s a summary of the features of each of our open data menu options.
• #264: Standard classifications, in the form of sets of URIs, are important so everyone using the data understands the terms used and these terms have precise meaning. URI sets of particular importance to local authorities are from: DCLG’s Open data Communities ONS, published via statistics.data.gov.uk our esd-standards and natural neighbourhoods (developed by Cheshire East) sites URIs are used to: Classify schemas define the scope of datasets - define teh scope of induividual data items within datasets
• #265: Documents give an overview of the scheme, details of how to apply and full details of how to comply with each schema – including exactly what data is expected in each column of the data and if it is optional or required. There are a lot of columns specified, but many are optional. We just name each column so, where councils do include data, the column name is the same for all councils.
• #267: The latest additions to the Local Government Inform Plus toolset is a whole host of search tools, inventory management and schemas/datasets harvesting under the “open data” section
• #268: The latest additions to the Local Government Inform Plus toolset is a whole host of search tools, inventory management and schemas/datasets harvesting under the “open data” section
• #302: Our definition of the new service…..
• #303: Useful details.
• #304: This is the landing page for LG Inform: http://lginform.local.gov.uk A brief note about LG Inform can be viewed Public users will be able to search for information about their authority by entering their postcode or authority. A selection here will alter the 6 dials: see next slide The tabs Search and About LG Inform will be discussed later.
• #305: The dials are controlled by the LGA and changes depending upon the authority selected. Additional information on the authority is available via the ‘headline report’. By clicking on the blue titles for the dials users will see further information about this metric, their authority and others. There is an ‘information pane’ on the right for showcaseing councils and new information
• #306: By returning to the home page. A search of the database can be performed.
• #307: In the search window type a simple topic area to establish what is available currently.
• #308: Results can be sorted by date or relevancy with up to 25 results per page
• #309: This is what the standard LGA report looks like: Metric description and a data table showing authority values set against other similar authorities.
• #310: A bar chart showing the relative performances of authorities in this group All components in the report can be exported out as individual elements: e.g. a picture or a csv file.
• #311: The information is show as a map.
• #312: A trend chart is available
• #313: The data set is available too.
• #314: The dials are controlled by the LGA and changes depending upon the authority selected. Additional information on the authority is available via the ‘headline report’. By clicking on the blue titles for the dials users will see further information about this metric, their authority and others. There is an ‘information pane’ on the right for showcaseing councils and new information
• #315: The Headline report opens with some background information on the report. By scrolling down a number of themes are revealed with example metrics
• #316: The headline report shows a standard report containing a selection of metrics for the council chosen across some themes.