Presentation 20150709 - api launch

Editor's Notes

• #3: You’ll be pleased to know I’m not going to talk for a long time, as others coming after me have much more to say. I’m just going to talk for a short time about the background to the API, and why the LGA has developed it. Then I’ll hand over to Mike, Dominic and Steve from Porism, our partners in this work, who will talk to you more about the technical side, giving you an overview of the API and its features. And then Matt, Gordon from Workshape.io and Ollie from Go ON UK will speak, to tell you about their practical experience of using the API, and show you what they’ve done. Finally, we’ll wrap up with questions and the chance to hang around and talk to the speakers or other delegates at the end.
• #4: The API exists because local government asked the LGA to step in and help them make intelligent use of data. For those of you not familiar with local government in England, it currently comprises over 350 councils, each charged with delivering over 1500 different and wide-ranging services. Local democracy encourages each organisation to define its own priorities and methods of service delivery such that the electorate can influence and shape the environment and community in which they live.   As a result, the datasets that underpin services are collected and held in locally determined formats. But there is data collected from local authorities, to common definitions. Government departments require local authorities to submit data about services and key issues, and other agencies also collect some information. We estimate around 40,000 types of data a year are collected. Local authorities themselves find this comparable information really helpful, when it comes to looking at how they differ from other areas. It helps them manage their performance, by comparing themselves to others; and it allows them to be accountable to their residents. But even where it’s collected to common definitions, open data about local areas tends to be published by a wide range of organisations in a range of formats and is difficult to bring together.  This makes it difficult for authorities, with increasingly limited resources, to access it quickly and easily.  Over recent years, the LGA and its technical partners have worked to help authorities by bringing this data together and presenting it consistently.  These have culminated in two online reporting tools: LG Inform (for local authority level comparisons) and LG Inform Plus (for more detailed drilldown into wards and lower geographies).  Both these tools are unpinned by a comprehensive and well-structured database of metrics held in secure form on the Amazon Cloud. These tools help authorities because, rather than each authority searching the internet for the latest data collection, we keep the data up to date for them. More than 3,000 data items are held in the tools, which reflect the key data used by authorities. And this database is growing all the time. The important point about the data is that it’s kept up to date. This is no mean feat. The LGA takes the pain out of sourcing and checking the data. Most government departments don’t have APIs themselves, so this is mainly a manual task. As a result, our database brings together at least three APIs (NOMIS, Ness, DCLG) but also acts as an API for key data in departments that don’t have them. And by using the LG Inform API, you only have to connect to one! Over the last year we’ve been working on a new tool, the API. This tool goes further, and now allows local authorities to feed their corporate and performance management systems directly with the data, without needing to download it from LG Inform.  But more than that, it’s also the start of our contribution to the open data agenda. We’re keen to increase access to the data, for developers and other organisations to benefit too, since they also experience the same frustrations that authorities do in accessing up to date information quickly and easily…and we hope that they can do some innovative and useful things with it that we’ve not thought of or have the resources to pursue.
• #5: Demographic data – age and ethnicity of the population, at local authority level and much smaller areas Data related to local government services – road conditions, recycling rates, achievement of five or more GCSEs Contextual data – crime data and health data, like mortality statistics and obesity levels Financial data – amount the council spends in the local area on education, or on planning
• #6: There is substantial activity in the local government sector on increasing the take-up and re-use of open data.  Local Authorities hold important data that can contribute to social and economic growth if this data could be released nationally to common standards; yet much of the data are fragmented or not comparable.   The LGA is one of a number of support organisations that is encouraging authorities to adopt common processes, standards and schemas for the publication of open data by local government.  The LGA open data tools and guidance materials provide examples where work is underway to encourage data publishing consistently across the sector