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Projects submitted

Browse project applications from Rounds 1 to 3 of the Local Digital Fund. Since Round 4, we no longer publish all applications on our website. However, you can find applications for successful projects on their individual project pages.

Exploring a digital self led Care and Support Assessment (CSA) to identify an individual’s strengths and support requirements.

Council name: Coventry City Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

This alpha will explore and test the hypotheses that a digital triage tool, combining a best of breed web app with carefully constructed animations will enable clients, and their immediate support network to self-serve elements of their care act assessment. In turn this will determine their strengths and outcomes and…

Exploring an evidence-based, shared and scalable digital resource approach which enables local authorities to match technology enabled care with older adults' needs in order to deliver efficiency gains.

Council name: Birmingham City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Partners: Shropshire County Council, Worcestershire County Council, Worcestershire Telecare, Solihull MBC, Goldfish and Aston University

Status: Not funded

Themes: Adult social care

We collected evidence during our initial LDF project that slow progress and duplication was due to the lack of a sector specific structure, organisation, and network for coordinating efforts across the West Midlands. The problems and causes revealed by this project were:  1 - No single technology product suits all…

Exploring and expanding the use of predictive modelling to understand future demand for children’s social care

Council name: Suffolk County Council (SCC)

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Funded

Suffolk County Council has developed a prototype open source model which has revealed new insights about the care pathways of children in care and projects future placement needs, working in partnership with Mastodon C: https://github.com/MastodonC/witan.cic The model and supporting data analyses address the following user stories: As a child in…

Exploring citizens’ views on data use so that local government can secure public trust and maximise the value of data.

Council name: Bristol City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

A recent Select Committee report concluded that “the Government does not understand citizen’s views on how their data should be used” (https://bit.ly/2k2U1P0). This knowledge gap problem exists at national, regional and local levels. Recent regulatory changes and high profile cases of data and privacy misuse has heightened public awareness, interest…

Exploring cross-local government User Research: can one council learn and improve the same statutory service from another council UR insights?

Council name: London Borough of Croydon

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Funded

Local authorities experience common problems – dealing with increasing demand, reduced budget and as a result less staff. They are also experiencing a vast set of common goals and needs – improve user journeys, simplify contact, reduce inefficiency, make it easier for users to access care, find information, apply and…

Exploring debt poverty (the causes, residents’ responses, access to services & information, approaches to debt management) so that we can develop a more holistic and effective approach and alleviate some of the current problems for our residents suffering debt poverty.

Council name: Sunderland City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Debt poverty is an issue that affects all Local Authorities in the UK. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that approximately 22% of people in the UK are living in poverty. Problem debt is defined by the Family Resources Survey as “being behind with any household bill or credit commitment” and…

Exploring error identification to improve data and evidence on children in care

Council name: Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Funded

Our discovery highlighted that keeping Looked After Children (LAC) data accurate is time-consuming and difficult. Consequently, leadership often don’t have the reliable insights they need for key decisions. (See p.22 for full user needs.) In alpha, we’ll explore different solutions to this problem and test our biggest assumptions and risks,…

Exploring error identification to improve data and evidence on children in care

Council name: Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Partners: Wigan Council, Manchester City Council, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, Department for Education, Milton Keynes Council, Isle of Wight Council, West Berkshire County Council, East Sussex County Council, Buckinghamshire County Council and Bracknell Forest Council

Status: Not funded

Themes: Children services, Health and social care record

Our discovery highlighted that keeping Looked After Children (LAC) data accurate is time-consuming and difficult. Consequently, leadership often don’t have the reliable insights they need for key decisions. (See p.22 for full user needs.) In alpha, we’ll explore different solutions to this problem and test our biggest assumptions and risks,…

Exploring exercise-based smartphone apps to improve health outcomes related to poor physical activity levels and digital literacy in users with learning disabilities and their carers.

Council name: Kingston Upon Hull City Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

Research in Sport, Health and Exercise Science at the University of Hull has seen the development of an exercise intervention which shows significant improvements in a range of health markers (strength, power, functional fitness, wellbeing).  A smartphone app which facilitates the delivery of the exercise intervention has now been developed. …

Exploring how Internet of Things (IoT) devices can enable vulnerable residents to be more independent in their home, promoting preventative intervention, augmented by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Council name: Cornwall Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

National picture   Nationally and locally, health and care systems need to manage the inevitable challenges of increased demand, expectations and reducing finances.   Across the UK, there are baseline objectives which underpin reform to achieve this: a whole population approach to improving health, regardless of health status, eligibility or…

Exploring local government customer needs for the creation of a standardised open data set in order to give them access to common property-based queries via all channels including AI

Council name: North Devon Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

At the moment, none of the partner authorities have sufficient skills or capacity to carry out effective user research. Therefore we are all unsure whether we are meeting user needs. This means we are making too many assumptions about what people want. Lack of resource, or resource not being directed…

Exploring modernising the Adult Social Care referral process to minimise inappropriate referrals and improve the customer journey, managing demand and reducing turnaround time for the right help and service at the point of referral.

Council name: Telford and Wrekin Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

We will work with social care professionals to interpret the thresholds for adult social care as set out in the care act into tailored questions designed to capture the information that professionals need to make a decision, whilst also ensuring that those people who do not meet the eligibility for…

Exploring the case for a mobile, digital entitlements and credentials ‘wallet’ for local residents

Council name: Lambeth Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Context: We propose to investigate the case for creating a mobile digital wallet of entitlements for local residents and local community assets, using the latest digital identity and data provenance technologies. In this specific ‘discovery phase’ proposal we are seeking to investigate a single use case: issuing and using social…

Exploring the development of common standards and a regional open data platform in the West of England to support transparent and collaborative working on key regional strategic issues such as air quality, the climate emergency and economic growth.

Council name: Bristol City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) comprises three local authorities, Bristol City Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, and South Gloucestershire Council. WECA has oversight of the regional transport, clean air and economic growth portfolio. In addition North Somerset is also consulted on many common policy areas. There…

Exploring the potential of how digital hubs and digital technologies can enhance the lives of residents

Council name: Lincolnshire County Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

We know that there are currently huge issues for local residents in Lincolnshire in accessing the internet. In addition, local health care providers are often frustrated by the lack of connectivity that may be stifling advances in delivery of care. This is largely due to rurality and residents/whole communities being…

Exploring the role of digital technology in restoring local neighbourhood support networks to tackle the epidemic of loneliness and disconnected communities.

Council name: London Borough of Southwark

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

We would like to explore the issue of disconnected communities and the associated problems of loneliness and lacking local support networks. These issues affect many residents, but particular older people, carers, people with disabilities and people with mental ill health. Loneliness and disconnected communities are linked to a range of…

Exploring the use of smart phone reward programmes as a method of reducing levels of air pollution in the Berkshire area, through encouraging increased physical activity and sustainable travel

Council name: Bracknell Forest Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

In Bracknell Forest and surrounding local authorities, levels of exercise are comparatively better than the regional and national average. Despite this, there are two key Public Health Outcome Indicators which have been identified as areas requiring improvement; air pollution and the percentage of adults who are walking for travel at…

Exploring the use of video calling appointments to improve the efficiency, accessibility and effectiveness of customer services through face-to-face communication.

Council name: Aylesbury Vale District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

This project aims to allow councils, through video calling, to gain the benefits of face-to-face communication without the traditional associated costs. When redeveloping its website in 2015, AVDC found that costs for managing customer interactions stood at £0.17 per website visit, £5 per phone call and up to £14 per face-to-face visit.…

Exploring the value from sharing different data sets so that we can efficiently generate actionable insight.

Council name: Huntingdonshire District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

In order to tackle public sector wide problems like the increasing cost of social care and health and the lack of affordable housing or jobs councils need to switch from reactive / broad brush approaches to targeted actions often in the preventative space. In order to do this we need to understand…

Exploring the value of open-source practices and communities so that local authorities may benefit from shared, reusable technical capabilities

Council name: LGSS (Northamptonshire County Council)

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Open source communities and practices in technology have been around since the early 1960s with many academics distributing free and open software to encourage and support openness and co-operation. As many will already be aware, some of the most well known software and organisations on the planet are founded on…