More recommendations for the Office for Local Government
Another week, another CFPD and mySociety joint response to a consultation about the Office for Local Government (Oflog).
In case you didn’t read our last Oflog blog, Oflog is a new Government organisation that was set up to improve data on local government performance. It has put out two inquiries in the last few months, and we’ve responded to both with our colleagues at mySociety.
This time round, Oflog published its draft Corporate Plan and opened a consultation for views on it. As organisations aiming to make government performance more transparent, we were happy to see Oflog’s ‘Inform’ objective: to increase citizens’ and the Government’s understanding of data on local government performance.
Our response set out two simple things that we think Oflog should do to support its ‘Inform’ objective:
Include data users and republishers in its user research, as well as dashboard end-users. Data users use local authority data to generate insights into performance. Data republishers use the same data to build services that inform citizens - think Climate Emergency UK’s and mySociety’s Climate Scorecards, which tell people about their local authority’s performance at meeting net zero. Oflog should talk to data users and republishers to understand their needs and factor them into its plans for new data products.
Tackle ‘data fragmentation’ in local government data - a problem which stops journalists and researchers from reusing local government data to tell important stories. You can read more about that in our last Oflog inquiry response.
Read our full response for more detail on these quick fixes, and please get in touch at contact@centreforpublicdata.org if you’d like to discuss it further.