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LG Inform Plus – Birmingham City Council

This case study highlights the work that Birmingham City Council has undertaken using LG Inform Plus. This includes their use of the direct data feed Application Programable Interface (API) which allows them to view and download open data about local areas. It also enables council officers to use and manipulate their local and comparative performance data for benchmarking purposes and to provide more detailed local data to the public.

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The challenge

Birmingham City Council is a large authority where historically data had been siloed and stored in disparate places. The council wanted to make better use of their data and bring together information about the city using a standard format which provided context and allowed them to compare their performance in a range of areas with that of other councils. The initial aim was to compare the key goals from the council’s corporate plan and benchmark their progress against other authorities. In order to help them achieve this the council began using the LG Inform Plus API.

The solution

Once using the API, the council were able to create a range of outputs, including reports that could be easily updated and which did not incur any additional cost, effort or staff resource. The API also enabled a overarching report to be produced, comparing multiple metrics, all in the same format and this allowed the council to visualise data in a more flexible way.

The LG Inform Plus API is now the go-to data resource within the council. Users can browse the entire catalogue of 22,000 metrics from which the required information is selected, and the LG Inform Plus data flow pulls the selected metrics through, producing a readily available themed report. 

Those requesting data often find that the API has a unique capability in providing this at different geographic levels and at a more granular level than they even knew existed. Historical data is also available allowing for complete time series to be compared

Birmingham Council use the LG Inform Plus API to save time and power their data products. 

In order to use their data to maximum effect the council make it available to everyone internally and then often republish on their own public observatory website so data can be utilised by an external audience. 

Example performance metric LG Inform Birmingham displaying childrens performance comparisons

 

The impact

The API has saved the council time and allowed council officers and members access to a far greater range of data than would otherwise have been the case. There have also been efficiency gains as more reports can be produced at pace and at a more granular level without the need for additional staff resource.

The API has greatly reduced report development time – what used to take months now only takes a matter of days. Maintenance is also minimal as reports can be updated simply by ensuring a refresh is in place. Additionally, because all data from the API is maintained by the LGA in a consistent structure and format, users know how to work with it and can compare metrics easily.

The API also provides the council with context for their data, allowing users to make comparisons and benchmark against other similar authorities. They can understand how favourably their own performance compares. The screenshot above shows a recent tool that the council created allowing them to consider their finance and performance metrics against those of all local authorities. This has helped the council to see which authorities perform well whilst incurring minimal spend; then ask the right questions to establish the local context, how this has been achieved, and what the authorities have implemented in order to do so. 

Councillors have also benefitted from a ward profile tool produced by the council using the API. This provides a wide range of information about wards and enables them to compare and contrast.

Additionally, data provided to the public on the Birmingham City Observatory site online is used by a wide range of people. Local groups or individuals use it to better plan their services or facilities by visualising where specific communities are located within wards. Students at the local university have also used council data for in-depth thesis studies.

Sustainability

Birmingham council intends to continue using LG Inform Plus and the API and already benefits from new, updated metrics and data. The subscription cost of LG Inform Plus to the council is outweighed by the time saving and efficiency gains that it brings.

Without access to the LG Inform Plus API the council would be unable to make benchmarking comparisons with other authorities as they would need to download data from a variety of sources and reformat it which would be too time consuming, costly and resource intensive. LG Inform Plus enables the authority to access a wide range of detailed data whilst making it easier to navigate and providing meaningful context.

Contact

For more information about the use of LG Inform at Birmingham City Council please contact: Danny O’Neill, Birmingham City Observatory
[email protected]