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.