Geography, and Local Public Services, need you in 2013

Hello all

A big welcome from the newly reinvigorated Local Public Services Special Interest Group (LPS SIG) that has both new membership and plans for new directions. These directions are broad but largely consist of six main objectives:

1. Provide a forum for sharing knowledge, expertise and encourage best practice in the use of GI by local public service delivery organisations creating a “hub” of expert knowledge supporting members in their continuous professional development.
2. Promote, raise awareness of and nurture the use of Geographical Information within the Public Sector influencing the opening up of GI to Citizens and Business for reuse.
3. Ensure that AGI is aware of and responds to any relevant consultation or policy documents including the compilation, agreement and timely delivery of any such response engaging relevant stakeholders as appropriate.
4. Encourage the public sector to contribute and engage with AGI activities and by doing so increase AGI members from the public sector community.
5. Encourage and develop relationships with other relevant AGI SIGs.
6. Communicate with membership and the broader GI community

We are encouraging new membership from within the AGI and outside (inviting new AGI membership). We also welcome suggestions as to how we can deliver the objectives of the SIG and
engage the sector through more innovative ways such as webinars, blogs, and better use of shared social media spaces.

The contribution and sharing of our knowledge is even more important now than ever and together we can create useful outcomes in allowing public services to understand geography and how it can be used to deliver modern and efficient services.  

More and more spatial data is being released by government (Census 2011),  the drive is continuing towards openness and transparency of public services and the growth of spatial intelligence and 'big data' in delivering services, not to mention predicting where they will be in future years!, making this the year that local public services geography is now more critical than ever.  

What do you feel will be the main issues that are facing your public services and geography? How can we better represent you and these issues?  Is there best practice out there that we should be spreading the word on?  Get in touch and we'll ensure that your views are represented and that we can best deliver them coherently and most important of all collaboratively.  So what are you waiting for?, contact us in the LPS SIG, comment and start posting those issues that are important to you, us and for the industry.

Get in touch
Twitter: @AGILPSSIG
LinkedIn: AGI Local Public Services SIG
LPS SIG web pages: http://www.agi.org.uk/lps/

Hendrik Grothuis

AGI Local Public Services SIG member survey results

In late 2011, we asked for your views on the main issues, priorities and occurrences with GI in local public services. And you responded. The results of the survey are in, with some interesting results.

What has become increasingly clear from the results is that in these times of austerity, public services are looking for better communication, more assistance on policy and greater use of case studies and practical advice to influence best practice in the use of GI in a constantly changing business environment.

This includes use of GI for business intelligence, how we can influence the decision makers of our organisations and how we can use all our combined knowledge and hard data to create more efficient, better public services. See the headline results below for more details:

1. What type of organisation do you work for and what kind of AGI membership do you have?

	Emergency Services	Government Department	Local Government	NHS	Private sector	Other
AGI Corporate Member	11.1%	11.1%	77.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
AGI Local Corporate Member	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
AGI Individual Member	0.0%	0.0%	90.0%	10.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Ex AGI member	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%	0.0%	0.0%	50.0%
Non Member	0.0%	0.0%	71.4%	14.3%	0.0%	14.3%

2. Approximately how many GI users are in your organisation and of these users how many can be described as superusers (managing and analysing GI)?

	1 to 5	6 to 10	11 to 20	20 plus	Other
GI Users	14.7%	2.9%	8.8%	67.6%	5.9%
Number of GI superusers	53.1%	9.4%	21.9%	12.5%	3.1%

3. What does your organisation primarily use GI for (tick all that apply)?

	Use	Don't use
Address management	84.4%	15.6%
Asset management	84.4%	15.6%
Business intelligence	89.7%	10.3%
Customer insight	78.6%	21.4%
Cartography/map creation	100.0%	0.0%
Data maintenance and updating	96.9%	3.1%
Planning and conservation	90.0%	10.0%
Publishing	73.1%	26.9%
Route optimisation	58.1%	41.9%
Service delivery (where is my nearest?)	83.9%	16.1%
Traffic management	51.6%	48.4%
Other	55.6%	44.4%

4. Is your GI offered as part of a shared service in your organisation?

	Part of shared services?
Yes	17%
No	83%

5. Do you provide or use web mapping services in your organisation?

	Yes	No
Web catalogue	20.0%	80.0%
Web download services	13.3%	86.7%
Web mapping	73.5%	26.5%
Other	9.1%	90.9%

6. Do you have a geographic or Geographic Information background?

Yes: 85.3%; No: 14.7%

7. Which issues do you feel are the highest priority with the use of GI in LPS (1=highest, 5=lowest)?

Issue	Average Rating
Resources/cutbacks	1.7
Data creation and capture	2.12
Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA)	2.17
Lack of senior management buy-in	2.32
National Addressing Gazetteer	2.32
Open data, open source	2.45
Shared services	2.94
INSPIRE	3.63

8. Would you be interested in attending an LPS GI event?

Nearly 86% of respondents expressed a desire that you would be interested in attending a LPS GI event, in particular a regional conference/seminar or a mapping camp event.

9. What event topics would you be most interested in attending?

Most commonly mentioned, in no particular, order include:

• National Address Gazetteer Management

• Common problems with GIS

• Web mapping,

• Shared services

• Customer insight and analytical business use of GI data

• Practical sessions in how others are using GI data and programming

• Senior management buy-in

• Efficient GI Data Management

• INSPIRE data and open data

• Mobile apps

10 (I) What are the future potential and innovative uses for GI in LPS?

• Making efficiencies from exploiting well understood GIS concepts

• Potential to improve services through public engagement and efficency

• Use of crowd sourced data and user self service tools

• Web mapping,

• Asset management

• Establishing local sdi

• Shared services

• Model building, time series analysis.

• use of GI in voluntary networks

• Mobile apps

10 (II) Are there any other GI related issues not covered here that you feel LPS should be concerned with?

• Realising the benefits of GI

• Basic information on GI for all levels of management

• Organisational integration

• Metadata specification

• Affordability and sustainability of open data and free access to data

10 (III) What role should LPS SIG play?

• Promoting innovation and sharing of best practice

• Consultancy/support to prgressive LPS users

• Coordination and thought gathering, leading to lobbying and promotion to senior management teams

• Networking and learning opportunities

• Lobbying and raising awareness S

• Sharing tools/explanations of finalised policy,

• To be the central voice on issues by networking, discussing and to be the opinion former

10 (IV) What do you expect from the LPS SIG

Two real issues emerged from this question namely expertise and continued and timely communications with members.

Local Government INSPIRE Survey 2011

The Local Government Association (LGA) carried out a survey of local authorities in England about the readiness for INSPIRE and the future implications for meeting INSPIRE compliance. The survey forms part of a wider impact assessment of INSPIRE on local authorities carried out by the LGA on behalf of the department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra). The survey has been published on http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1254606 alongside updates about the local government requirements to meet INSPIRE compliance.

 Key findings of the survey were:

• almost all local authorities have some understanding of INSPIRE and the majority see a benefit in INSPIRE by knowing what data exist and reduce duplication and a greater potential for use of data in cross sector partnership working
• while most authorities recognise the importance of metadata the implementation lacks behind data policy of publishing metadata to given standards on data.gov.uk
• most authorities have some form of online publishing capabilities but the majority meet INSPIRE compliance by publishing through national portals.
• Local authorities create and use a range of datasets across most INSPIRE data themes. The themes for which most datasets are held are area management/restriction reporting zones/reporting units, and land use. The most commonly used external data sources are geology, elevation, and orthoimagery.
• Just over half of all organisations do not have a licensing regime in place whereas only 8.8% use the open government license for their geographic data.
• Local authorities identified a need for further local government specific, less technical guidance and information, lack of resources to implement INSPIRE and hence a preference for publishing through national portals.

The Local Government Association is working with the UK Location Programme, local authorities and AGI suppliers to further develop cost effective solutions and support local authorities in meeting their requirements. We would be grateful for any signposting below this post of information (clear guidance, case studies, simple solutions) that has been published elsewhere to meet local INSPIRE needs.  

Barrow Borough Council INSPIRED AGI awards panel

This years winner of the Local Public Services Award is Barrow Borough Council for implementing an open source solution for publishing spatial data under INSPIRE. The system creates an INSPIRE compliant solution for discovery and mapping services and links with data.gov.uk. The solution potentially provides a road map for many other organizations using open source technology at low cost.

INSPIRE is a legal technical framework for accessing and sharing spatial information across Europe. INPSIRE compliance is a high profile topic which many organisations have not fully embraced.  Lessons learnt and the knowledge of those involved can be shared widely amongst other public sector organisations and ensure they comply with the INSPIRE directive. 

Robin Gawlik, who implemented the project at Barrow, has provided valuable feedback from a practitioners perspective about UK Location infrastructure components to the UK Location programme. With this implementation Barrow has demonstrated that the implementation of INSPIRE publishing services is technically feasible even for small local authorities and has set a best practice example for data publishers in the country. 

It must not be underestimated the effect the success of this project could have, should it be used, for best practice and a model for implementing INSPIRE compliant services.

A case study of the project on the Implementation of an Open Source solution for INSPIRE publishing services is available from the LGA website on http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/20246680. The system can be accessed on http://www.barrowbc.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1629.

Local Public Services SIG member survey

Update: 25th Of November 2011

This survey is now closed.  Thank you for contributing towards the future direction of geographic information in Local Public Services.  The results of the survey will be available soon.

LPS SIG Committee

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The Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Local Public Services Special Interest Group (LPS SIG) provides a forum to exchange ideas, best practice and promote and develop solutions for making better use of GI across public service providers.

The outcome of the LPS SIG relies on and is shaped by voluntary contributions and enthusiasm of its members.

This is where you come in. We want your views on what are the main issues, priorities and occurrences with GI in public services. The more we understand what the needs of the GI community are, the more we can raise awareness, discuss and lobby for these needs to be met. 

Closing Date: This survey is now closed.