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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 how to join up finance, needs, and operational information for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in order support better-informed planning, commissioning and funding decisions, and sustainably meet growing need for additional support.

Council name: Oldham Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Problem overview There is a widely acknowledged crisis in SEND funding and provision: Since 2016 nearly half of Local Authorities (LAs) have been asked to submit a written statement of action following poor Ofsted/CQC inspections on SEND. Around 8 out of 10 LAs in England have a deficit in their…

Exploring Income Management and ePayments so that all councils can benefit from a viable alternative to legacy systems and suppliers.

Council name: Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Partners: Allerdale Borough Council, Cherwell District Council, Huntingdon District Council, North East Lincolnshire District Council, Sheffield City Council, South Northamptonshire Council and the Government Digital Service

Status: Funded

Themes: Website improvement

All local authorities need to manage their finances through income management (IM) and reconciliation processes: matching expected income against actual income allocating actual income to paying users’ accounts (for example, to show that someone has paid their council tax) matching actual income to ledger codes so books can be balanced…

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 new user-centred digital systems to make the planning process more efficient and transparent.

Council name: The London Borough of Southwark

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Partners: London Borough of Hackney, Greater London Authority and Surrey Heath Borough Council

Status: Funded

Our work during discovery was largely focussed on exploring the user needs of planning officers to understand the challenges they face and the potential benefits of improving the back-end management systems they use. We found that new systems, designed with a user-centred approach, would result in a more efficient and…

Exploring responsive digital processes so that services are digitally accessible and meeting the needs of the public.

Council name: East Lindsey District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

East Lindsey District Council alongside Boston Borough Council and South Holland District Council cover 2,250 km² of East Lincolnshire with a combined population of over 300,000. The sparsely distributed population coupled with limited infrastructure, acts as a barrier to communications and hinders take up of online services by our residents.…

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 measurement of the value created through the planning system (planning value) to better inform decision making at a case, policy and authority level

Council name: Wycombe District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

The purpose of planning is to ensure that the right development happens in the right place at the right time, benefitting communities, the economy and the environment. The benefits and value created through planning are critical to the UK but are rarely measured. Without a monetised view of planning value,…

Exploring the opportunities to promote local employment, apprenticeships, volunteering and work experience for young people to enhance growth, personal development and social inclusion.

Council name: Cambridgeshire County Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

It is hard for young people to progress into the world of meaningful work. We know that young people struggle to find out about learning opportunities, on-the-job training and full/part time employment during their studies. It is also really hard for young people, and their support networks, to find out…

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 real-time Business Intelligence (BI) within a planning department to better inform decision making

Council name: Wycombe District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

The purpose of planning is to ensure that the right development happens in the right place at the right time, benefitting communities, the economy and the environment. Large quantities of data are recorded during the planning process, but this data is usually retrospective, difficult to access, interpret and use in…

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 user needs for mobile working so that common service design patterns to improve productivity and efficiency can be developed for use by the sector.

Council name: Tunbridge Wells Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Across all local authorities there are significant numbers of staff spending their time out of the office. These staff rely on systems which create as many barriers to doing an effective job as they solve. These include time spent on basic administrative tasks, finding and carrying around paper case notes,…

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…

Exploring the value off outbound communications to citizens based on their life events and situation so that we prevent situations developing into crisis.

Council name: Huntingdonshire District Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Residents that are embedded into a community are less likely to have a bad situation develop into crisis and are more able to draw on support from sources other than the council. This has been proven time and again and is the reason behind the desire to develop community resilience.…

Exploring using people counters and GPS technology to improve security in the Parks (secure, safe parks for our communities) and reduce costs associated with anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

Council name: Kingston Upon Hull City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

It is well known that all local authorities suffer at the hands of vandalism and anti-social behaviour within our parks and play areas. This puts a strain on our budgets and affects the local community. There is a rising problem of anti-social behaviour in our towns and cities with large…