The Local Digital C-19 Challenge

Using data and digital tools to support COVID-19 recovery across local government

In 2020, DLUHC’s Local Digital Collaboration Unit made funding available for data and digital projects to help local authorities in England with their COVID-19 recovery and renewal efforts.

This government funding of up to £800,000 in total was aimed at supporting Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) projects that sought to combat the challenges faced by local government as a direct result of COVID-19.

The Challenge is now closed, but you can read about the funded projects and view their outputs below.

Learn more

About the Challenge

We launched this fund to respond to the need for digital and data-enabled approaches to council operations post-COVID-19.

We invited applications in three thematic areas:

  • Data and reporting
  • Community engagement
  • Developing new working practices

Applications did not need to have a pure technology focus. Refer to the Local Digital Declaration to understand the principles we encourage in every project.

The funded projects

DLUHC awarded funding to 11 local government projects, who received a share of £800,000 to combat some of the challenges they faced as a direct result of COVID-19.

To find out more about each project and what they set out to achieve, visit their project pages linked below.

The projects

  1. How Busy is Toon (Newcastle City Council)
  2. Digital Place Based Engagement (London Borough of Camden)
  3. VCS and Council Data Exchange (Greater London Authority, Camden Council and London Office of Technology and Innovation)
  4. Community Engagement Playbook (South Gloucestershire Council and Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames)
  5. Future Work Design (East Riding of Yorkshire Council)
  6. Demand Modelling Tool for Children’s Services (The Greater Manchester Combined Authority)
  7. Digital Inclusion Toolkit (Croydon Council & Leeds Council)
  8. Beach Check Application (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council)
  9. Scalable approach to vulnerability (SAVVI) (Tameside Council)
  10. Societal Early Needs App (Huntingdonshire District Council)
  11. Developing a crisis response model to support Neighbourhood Team delivery (Manchester City Council)

View all C-19 Challenge outputs

Project nameLead Council(s)Description of outputOutput
How Busy Is ToonNewcastle City CouncilA tool (howbusyistoon.com) to identify where parts of a city are overcrowded and disseminate information to citizens so they can make informed decisions about their movements. View the code on Github

Read the onboarding guide
Future Work DesignEast Riding of Yorkshire CouncilA research report into remote working challenges in local government, which contains 8 working practice profiles for council staff working in different contexts.Download the report (PDF)
Future Work DesignEast Riding of Yorkshire CouncilA risk assessment tool that’s ready to be used by HR/OD and corporate teams.Download the risk assessment tool (PDF)
Future Work DesignEast Riding of Yorkshire CouncilGuidance on how to use the risk assessment tool in practice.
Download the guidance (PDF)
VCS and Council Data ExchangeGreater London Authority, Camden Council and London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI)This User Guide sets out how to create and run a Community Insights Project. Community Insights Projects bring together Voluntary and Charitable Sector (VCS) staff and council data experts to explore how different types of quantitative and qualitative data can be used to deliver better support to residents during the pandemic and beyond. Combining their strengths, skills and capacity to address shared ‘blindspot’ issues, planning, analysing and responding as one. Read the User Guide (Google Doc)
VCS and Council Data ExchangeGreater London Authority, Camden Council and London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI)A project final report that details the research process and findings.Read the final Report (Google Slides)
Digital Inclusion ToolkitCroydon Council & Leeds CouncilA comprehensive playbook that addresses the needs of multiple audiences in one go, as well as factoring in the challenges introduced from lockdown and social distancing.View the toolkit
Demand Modelling Tool for Children's ServicesThe Greater Manchester Combined AuthorityA model to anticipate the forthcoming wave of demand to help vulnerable children and families emerge out of the constraints of lockdown.Download the model from ChAt Group Library
Scalable Approach to Vulnerability Via Interoperability (SAVVI)Tameside CouncilAn online playbook, featuring process, standards and a catalogue. View the playbook website
Community engagement playbookSouth Gloucestershire Council and Royal Borough of Kingston Upon ThamesA ‘playbook’ that includes systems and tools councils can use for various forms of public engagement.View project GitHub
Societal Early Needs App (formerly Vulnerability Risk Index)Huntingdon District CouncilUser Research report - the project conducted research with residents who would be users of their proposed service, as well as workers in the community sector. This report is the condensed outputs from their user research work across 4 sprints.Download the User Research report
Societal Early Needs App (formerly Vulnerability Risk Index)Huntingdon District CouncilService Design report - this report is the condensed outputs from the project’s service design work across 4 sprints.Download the Service Design report
Societal Early Needs App (formerly Vulnerability Risk Index)Huntingdon District CouncilTechnical Architecture - the technical architecture is based on building on top of existing solutions in the market and is also compatible with OpenSource code bases.Download the Technical Architecture report
Beach Check ApplicationBournemouth, Christchurch and Poole CouncilA smartphone application to help prevent overcrowding on beaches by telling people how busy sections are, so they can do their bit to help maintain social distancing.Download the BeachCheck app for the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area for free from Google Play or the Apple App Store

Contact [email protected] to feature your locations on the app.
Digital Place Based EngagementLondon Borough of CamdenPractical approaches and tools for digital place-based engagement to ensure local people and businesses can still have a meaningful say on planning projects, including major planning applications and town centre renewals, as physical distancing restrictions are eased.View the project summary (Google Slides)
Digital Place Based EngagementLondon Borough of CamdenA digital site notice prototypeView the prototype on Figma
Digital Place Based EngagementLondon Borough of CamdenPlaybook prototypeView the prototype
Digital Place Based EngagementLondon Borough of CamdenPlanning notification bot code on GitHubView code on GitHub

Key dates

1 July 2020

Applications opened.

6 July 2020

Q&A session on the #mhclg-fund Slack channel in the LocalGovDigital workspace.

15 July 2020

Applications closed.

21-22 July 2020

Panel interviews held with applicants.

October 2020 - March 2021

As the projects completed, their outputs were published on the Local Digital website.