Helping local communities in Trafford represent themselves and highlight their needs using an online interactive data hub

Background

Trafford Council has been an advocate of open data since May 2010 when the council took the decision to create an open data page on its website to allow access to numerous data it collects. This includes: council tax, business rates, location data, such as for schools and leisure centres and election results.

However, it wanted to use the data more effectively to create an intelligence resource. With NESTA funding and support from a steering group which included other Greater Manchester local authorities it embarked on an initiative called DataGM – a platform that would allow data sharing across Greater Manchester.

Alongside its work with DataGM, Trafford also wanted to develop its own data sharing initiative and went out to tender for a solution that would enable it to develop what it saw as a data observatory for Trafford.

Read the full article >>

IPPR – How a UK think tank is using data presentation turn a project on the needs of older people in London into a useful resource

Background

IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK’s leading progressive think tank, producing rigorous research and innovative policy ideas. IPPR publishes more than 50 reports each year and it uses its website as a hub for progressive thinking.

Getting started

One of its recent projects was supported by the City Bridge Trust – a charity that supports charitable activity benefitting Greater London. The project culminated in a report Older Londoners that highlighted the urgent need to tackle social isolation among the oldest members in society. It found that the number of people in London aged over-65 is expected to rise by a third in the next 20 years and those aged over 90, by 95 per cent.

Senior research fellow Kayte Lawton says: “It was a project looking at ageing and growing problems faced by the over-80s. This is a group of people who are often classed with the over-65s but we wanted to differentiate the needs of this older group. They often have greater social care and health needs.”

Read the full article

How data presentation is helping the Mexico Data Observatory get local information into the hands of a wide range of individuals

Background

Mexico’s Data Observatory works alongside the local government, organisations representing citizen’s interests and universities. One of its aims is to communicate data in such a way that it can be understood not only by experts but by the whole population. It had previously been using PDFs to present data but decided it needed to investigate other ways of doing this.

Salomon Gonzalez Arellano is Professor Investigator at the Observatory and faculty member of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana says that one of the drivers for them was to make the data accessible by a wide range of individuals – even to teenagers needing insight for their homework.

“We felt that we didn’t need a typical map server because that would require a large investment and not everyone would be able to use it,” he says. “We decided to look for another way to communicate our work.”

Getting started

The Observatory first came across InstantAtlas in 2005 through a design agency that was interested in geographical information systems (GIS). However, it was several years before the Observatory was given funding.

Read the full article 

Versión en español disponible

Havering Data Intelligence Hub | Ensuring strategic partners are able to access data and get a better understanding of local need

Background

The Havering Data Intelligence Hub provides data, information and research about the London Borough of Havering. The Hub was set up to benefit the local authority, its partners and the public by helping them understand key information about the borough through data, analysis, surveys and reports.

Getting started

Rebecca Booker is Area Intelligence Business Analyst at the council. She says one of the key drivers for the hub was the need for all the partners to have access to the same data.“You often find that people obtain data from different places and this can be confusing as there is little consistency. We wanted to make sure all the data was in one place where everyone can access it,” says Rebecca.

Read the full article

Consumer Credit Counselling Service

Background

The Foundation for Credit Counselling, based in Leeds, is a registered charity which was set up to assist people in financial difficulty by providing free, impartial and realistic debt advice. The Foundation for Credit Counselling is the umbrella charity for Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) in theUnited Kingdom. Through its free national telephone service, ten regional centres and online CCCS Debt Remedy, CCCS is able to help people with debt problems wherever they live. CCCS is continually looking for new ways to raise awareness of its services and its data is an important resource for its promotions.

 

Getting started

CCCS felt that data such as the number of people seeking its help would be a good way to highlight the pattern of debt in the UK, which would be of interest to the media and politicians. Presenting the data in an easy-to-understand format would be helpful for the media and the public.

Read the full article

Visualising the Index of Multiple Deprivation with InstantAtlas

The government’s Indices of Deprivation were published last week, including the overview Index of Multiple Deprivation 2010 (IMD 2010) which is used very widely to target programmes and resources to tackle inequality and deprivation. The IMD is an important measure of how local areas compare with others on a comprehensive basket of deprivation indicators – so provides a key input to understanding “need” for service commissioning.

Our colleagues at OCSI have been busy providing the IMD data to Data Packs users (http://www.instantatlas.com/data_packs.xhtml), and have written about why the IMD is still important in the open data era (http://www.ocsi.co.uk/news/2011/03/24/why-the-imd-is-still-important-in-the-open-data-age/), some headline findings (http://www.ocsi.co.uk/news/2011/03/24/headline-results-from-the-indices-of-deprivation-2010/), and links to commentary and visuals (http://www.ocsi.co.uk/news/2011/03/29/visualising-the-indices-of-deprivation-2010/). Some of these were picked up by the Guardian DataBlog (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/indices-multiple-deprivation-poverty-england).

InstantAtlas users have of course already started visualising the datasets, including:

• Coventry: http://ias.facts-about-coventry.com/IAS/dataviews/report/fullpage?viewId=236&reportId=234&geoId=7&geoSubsetId=199&geoReportId=7774
• Cornwall: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/deprivationmap
• Nottingham: http://www.nottinghaminsight.org.uk/IAS/dataviews/report?reportId=383&viewId=992&geoReportId=26806&geoId=5&geoSubsetId=
• Kirklees (using the older IMD 2007): http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/statistics/deprivation/report/2007/atlas.html

As a free offer to all InstantAtlas Server users, OCSI are offering the IMD data for your area, formatted to load straight into your IAS.

Get in touch with Emma James at OCSI (emma.james@ocsi.co.uk, 01273 201 345) for details.

InstantAtlas helps Local Government Chronicle present the full extent of local government job cuts

InstantAtlas is being used by Local Government Chronicle (LGC) [link to http://www.lgcplus.com/] to present a visualisation of local government job cuts. LGC says figures indicate that 7.3 per cent of local government posts will be axed in the coming budget year. The magazine, part of EMAP Public Sector, based its analysis on information from almost half of English councils.

The research is unique because it shows for the first time job cuts as a proportion of the workforce, rather than as an absolute number. Further analysis of council type reveals that 9.2 per cent of metropolitan borough council jobs are set to go in 2011-12, followed by 7.1 per cent of London borough staff. The interactive jobs map LGCplus.com can be found here:

See Report

Ruth Keeling, reporter, LGC says: “Our online map clearly shows the hotspots for job cuts amongst English councils. InstantAtlas has been invaluable to us in presenting this story and has helped us deliver more interactive content for LGC subscribers.”

Become an LGC subscriber – click here

Statistiks Bremen – ‘Giving politicians and planning-related decision makers the intelligence to make better decisions’

Background

The Statistical Office of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is responsible for providing the official statistics for the city of Bremen. Its main task is collecting data, processing, evaluation and publication of more than 200 statistics. The data relates to demographic, social, economical and ecological factors. According to Barbara Rosel who works in The Statistical Office, this data is vital for political and planning-related decision making.

“Data and information has to be processed and made available for local planning and administration agencies of the city. To secure local intelligence for the state of Bremen and beyond, we publish the data and information in different formats and offer different ways to access them,” says Barbara.

City of Bremen - Birth Rates (2005-2009) - Using Single Map Template

Getting started

The Statistical Office decided that InstantAtlas would help it present data in an informative and visually compelling format. The team has created a number of reports using the data presentation software:

• Bremer Ortsteilatlas (Bremen neighbourhood atlas). A data presentation of the different indicators at neighbourhood level of the city of Bremen

• Bremer Baublöcke (Bremen block-level atlas). A data presentation of the different indicators at block-level

• Bremer Wahlatlas (Bremen Election Atlas). A data presentation of the Federal Election results to the German Bundestag in the districts of the City of Bremen.

Meeting the need

The intelligence provided by the Statistical Office is used by various departments including the administration department, political and economic advisers plus members of the public.

Read the full article >>

InstantAtlas Essentials Video Tutorial #15

“How to include upper limit and lower limit into the table on spine chart”

This video takes you through the steps necessary to show upper and lower limit associate values in the Table and Spine Chart.

Pinellas County ‘How a small team is helping stakeholders get a better understanding of the community and the impact of interventions through data visualization’

Pinellas County, on Florida’s West Coast, is a 280-square mile peninsula bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay. The Health and Human Services Coordinating Council for Pinellas County works with funders and providers across the community to develop a human service system for citizens that provides seamless, high-quality care based on the best use of available resources.

 

The Council has developed a website (http://www.pinellasindicators.org) that provides timely access to statistics and dynamic data visualization. The website is sponsored by Pinellas County and the Juvenile Welfare Board: The Children’s Service Council of Pinellas County.

Joe Baldwin is the Senior Researcher/Planner for the Council. We spoke to him to find out how the website is helping to meet the Council’s objectives and how it all started. Joe explains that the initial step was to bring stakeholders from health and human services agencies together to develop specifications. A guiding principle developed early on was that the system had to meet the needs of three groups: residents, elected officials and community leaders.

 

Getting started

Residents wanted a better understanding of the quality of life in Pinellas County and to discover whether agencies’ efforts were having an impact. Elected officials wanted information about their constituencies and to be able to make data-driven decisions. Community leaders wanted to be able to monitor indicators that were important to their individual organizations.

Joe was already familiar with InstantAtlas but found out about the server version at a Community Indicators Consortium conference in Washington. He realised that this version was more suitable for the Council’s needs. “We are by comparison to other community indicator initiatives a small team,” says Joe.

Making the project work

“There were some challenges when it came to getting the system up and running but the support staff at GeoWise were very supportive. Once the initial leg work and the indicators were set up the team realised the extent of the efficiency gain.”

“The Health and Human Services Coordinating Council for Pinellas County was created by an interlocal agreement between funders, and it supports the efforts of many health and human service agencies working together to effect positive change in the community. This means a data presentation tool like this has to be highly collaborative. We have a data committee that is working to develop shared responsibility for the quality of the data and avoiding duplication of effort,” says Joe.

Read more here >>>

Cambridgeshire County Council – ‘Combining customer insight and Output Area Classification data to create visualisations of local information and analysis’

The Research Group at Cambridgeshire County Council has created a number of interactive atlases that combine local data with the social classification tool Output Area Classification (OAC). These have added insight into local areas across the county and provided a fresh approach for interrogating data that is held on resident populations. The interactive maps use various datasets and have been combined with OAC to offer insight into local communities. Gurjeet Rajania, Senior Research Officer: Consultation and Customer Knowledge and Hendrik Grothuis LIP Project Manager, have now just released their most comprehensive atlas to date; the Ward Profile Atlas. This includes a wide range of socio-economic and demographic indicators to develop a fuller picture of issues affecting local areas in Cambridgeshire.

Starting point

We spoke to Gurjeet and Hendrik about their use of interactive maps and customer insight data. Gurjeet explains their starting point was to use data from the 2008 Place Survey and display with OAC. The Place Survey was designed to give a snapshot of residents’ opinions of their local areas and was a requirement of every Local Authority. The survey included a series of national indicators covering satisfaction with local amenities and services, community cohesion and environmental concerns.

Gurjeet and Hendrik wanted to display the data with a high level of granularity at ward level across the county for each of the national indicators. They also wanted to overlay the map with OAC. Hendrik has been producing interactive maps using InstantAtlas for the county council for some time and Gurjeet worked with InstantAtlas in the past to display indices of deprivation at another Local Authority. They both recognised that it would be a useful data presentation tool. Hendrik worked on developing the InstantAtlas template while Gurjeet made sure the data was collected and available in the right

Meeting the need

There has been a great deal of interest from the council’s community engagement team and also from its transport services and community safety teams. This is because it allows them to see a detailed picture of what residents in the area think about local services and it therefore helps them assess gaps in provision. Gurjeet and Hendrik were pleased by the positive response and quickly set about producing another OAC atlas. What followed were the Living Costs and Food Survey atlas and the full OAC atlas.

The combined Place Survey and OAC atlases have been commended by the council’s chief executive, Mark Lloyd. On his blog, he said: “As we look to target our services, we need a really deep understanding of the County so we can answer the ‘who, what, where and when’ questions. I encourage colleagues to make maximum use of the intelligence about the County held by the Research Group.”

To read the full article click here

Listen to the TalkLIS Interview

Find out more about the InstantAtlas LIS Workshop 2011