esd.org.uk

sharing nationally to improve services locally

App Your Service: mobile applications for better public

Services

LG Inform and other public sector APIs to build apps

Mike Thacker

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Who am I?

• Mike Thacker, Porism Limited• Technical partner to LGA for esd-

toolkit programme• Relevant work:

– esd-standards– IT infrastructure serving LG Inform and LG

Inform Plus apps

• Interest: Re-use efficiency across local government

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Application Programmer Interfaces• Why APIs are important• Apps for service delivery

– Examples– APIs

• Apps for information– Examples– Useful open data– APIs

• LG Inform API– Examples– The API

Apps and the APIs they use

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Apps provide ways of interacting with council/community services. They are not self-contained.

APIs can:•Open public systems to third party developer•Open data for creative re-use

Councils can benefit:•From providing APIs so other people help deliver council services•From using APIs to take advantage of data and services provided by others

Why APIs are important

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

• Integrate with backend system (eg council CRM)• Single or multiple councils• Normally public non-personal information

Apps for service delivery

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

APIs

• Open311 – API for issue submission and tracking– Mainly USA– There’s an add-on to Lagan CRM– Lots of open source software

• LG Service List and Functions List provide standard definitions across England and Wales

• GDS provides council web page addresses via LG Service List reference

• GDS has open API – at least for web site content• Mydex identity management provides a way of

managing personal data

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Present information, usually specific to the locality

Apps for information

Crime map Numberhood OpenlyLocal scraped planning data

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Linked Data sources:• Open Data Communities• Ordnance Survey • esd-standards• CIPFA

APIs• Open Street Map• Police / Crime • Openly Local• Transport for London• Nomis / NESS / ONS• LG Inform Plus

Useful open data

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

LG Inform API in use

LG InformLGA Supplier

LG Inform Plusesd-toolkit

programme

Clouds Over London

Team Bieber

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

LG Inform Plus – Metric types

Data for 18,000+ metric types defined publicly at http://id.esd.org.uk/list/metricTypes

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

LG Inform Plus – Web methods

• Metric values by:– large area (country, region, authority) and/or

– small area (ward, OAs, neighbourhood)– time period

• Area properties and groups• Summaries and breakdowns

(percentiles, mean, median, regression, ...)

• User sign-in for extra permissions See web methods

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Why use LG Inform API?

• Do more than LG Inform and LG Inform Plus• Tap into the LGA Research and Information

Team’s expertise• Avoid the cost of gathering and maintaining

own data• Avoid having to hunt out data from

numerous sources• Security managed for you• Quality of analysis and IT infrastructure

esd.org.uk sharing nationally

to improve services locally

Further information

api.esd.org.uksupport@esd.org.uk@esdtoolkit

Mike.Thacker@Porism.com@MikeThacker