Digital
An authoritative list of Scotland’s Local Authorities
March 24, 2017 by David Duncan-Fraser 4 Comments | Category Digital Public Services
Why do we need lists of things?
We are committed to the principle that digital technology can enable our public sector to transform their services. Our aim is to have high-quality, efficient services that are built around the needs of their users and are responsive to change.
An essential ingredient is the ability to access and share the non-sensitive, publically available, data needed to power our digital services. We have therefore been working on a common approach to the creation and maintenance of such data across Scotland.
Our work has shown that multiple lists of things have been developed in organisations across the public sector. These are usually sources of information that teams rely upon when delivering services to the public. Now, we want to consider a different, more efficient approach that avoids the risks that come from the use of multiple lists which might potentially contain different – and/or out of date – information.
Establishing a single, authoritative, list or “register” as it is typically known by colleagues in digital across Government, will make it easier to access reliable, well maintained data.
What is an authoritative list?
It:
- is a list of a specific type of thing, such as Local Authorities or schools
- provides the single, authoritative and quality checked list of that thing that everyone can trust
- never duplicates data that is held in other registers
- simplifies and standardises how data is stored
- is digital and it can be accessed and searched by people and machines
- has a custodian to manage and own the data it contains including processing changes and monitoring quality
- meets a valid user need, and is sometimes required by law
The UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) has been developing a platform for registers and has been engaging with users and stakeholders across the UK. We have learned a lot from their approach and have been sharing ideas and experiences around the creation of authoritative lists of local authorities.
Local Authority Register
This year, we have been working with colleagues in Office of the Chief Statistician, our geography colleagues in Digital Directorate, and with GDS. Our aim was to develop a simple register as an exemplar of how future registers will be developed and managed. We have now created a register of Scottish local authorities that is now available for feedback.
Colin Cook, Acting Director Digital in the Scottish Government said,
“The alpha register is just the start of our work on creating a new national platform for authoritative lists or “registers” as they are usually known in digital circles, which will become the single point of access to trustworthy and reliable data needed to transform the delivery of digital services. We have started with the development of an alpha register of local authorities and I hope that public bodies are able to provide the feedback needed to move this register into the beta phase quickly.”
You should get in touch
We are obviously really happy that our alpha is up and running but we need delivery organisations in other parts of the public sector to use the data and comment on its usability. Please tell us if the structure and entries are as you expect them, and if the data can be consumed easily.
Over the next few weeks, we will be working with the Local Government and Communities Division to improve the register. This feedback will help ensure it can move forward into its beta-phase for use more widely by people and services.
You can contact David by email: david.duncan-fraser@gov.scot or by leaving a comment below.
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I wonder if this register could be improved by also incorporating each local authority’s unique and standardised stats code, e.g. S12000017 for Highland? Obviously these will change every time an LA boundary changes so need to be kept up to date. Perhaps you should also link to where that official LA boundary should be derived from (Ordnance Survey or ONS)? This register could also link to the hierarchical geography information that you keep in http://statistics.gov.scot/areas?
Hi Simon,
This is something we had been considering, but like you said the boundary is distinct from the legal entity/org that this register covers. We are following guidance from GDS on this, who are now considering a GSS-code register. This is currently in Discovery and has the parent levels within it, but there are some similar statistical code registers being developed at the same time; see [Wales unitary authority]. We’ll get in touch with GDS and ONS to see how we can feed into this.
DDF
What is “official-name” intended to be? The statutory name of the local authority, or just the full name that the LA likes to call itself?
Hi Kenneth, thanks for your comment. We intend for the ‘official-name’ field to include the statutory name of the Local Authority in Scotland. The other ‘name’ field is intended to be used for the more familiar or recognisable name of the LA.