"Small Area" Local Information System

LASOS is the ‘small area’ Local Information System that has been developed for the South Yorkshire region on behalf of Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham Councils.

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Developed by Fluent Technology using their Origin platform, it provides local communities; elected Councillors and people working in public services easy online access to quality assured data about their Council area, ward and neighbourhoods.

The solution includes population, community safety, fire, health, education and economic data. This information actively helps with performance assessments, planning service improvements and measuring the efficiency and impact of public service delivery. There are now over 130 registered users on the system representing all key stakeholders and third party policy influencers.

Saving Time in Data Collection and Reporting Activities

It is estimated that key analysts are now saving an estimated 6 hours per week on routine data collection and reporting activities. This translates to a significant efficiency improvement across all stakeholders.

LASOS has comparable data sets for each local authority area to support and inform benchmarking, decision-making and monitoring. The data is being continually updated and enhanced to provide an enhanced and comprehensive spread of common data sets across the South Yorkshire regions. Reporting on performance against priorities and Local Area Agreement targets is provided too, with links to the supporting background data.

Easily Accessible Information

LASOS can be easily accessed from any laptop or desktop computer that has an internet connection. The general public can simply enter a postcode on the home page to access key facts about any neighbourhood in the region.

In the 11 months up to the end of November 2009 some 15,000+ visits to the public facing site has resulted in 19,091 searches have been conducted via this interface. Using NWEGG’s estimated costs for web (£0.17p) as opposed to ‘phone (£4.00) transactions this would represent a saving of £73k though it is recognised that many of these enquirers may well have given up and not bothered to call without having the ‘self service’ web option available.

Users can also view the profiles on prosperity, crime or fire and how these compare with other neighbourhoods and however a variety of other profiles are being prepared.

Most information within LASOS is available publically and using the dashboard anyone can examine data in detail and even develop their own simple reports.

Searches for data can be done on a range of geographic areas, such as community assemblies, ward or sub ward or neighbourhood level.

Interested parties, such as researchers, analysts and policy workers throughout the partnership can register for access to additional dashboards and gain access to further datasets and tools.

Key Benefits realised:

• Radically improved and streamlined data collection and reporting processes
• Increased consistency of data definitions across all partners and stakeholders
• Increased volume of ‘self service’ for information requests by the public
• More timely publishing of information to the public
• Tailored interfaces for stakeholders (e.g. my region, my data, my reports, my resources)
• Access widened to include policy influencers outside of the key stakeholders

Contact: Danny Gilhooly (Policy, Partnership and Performance Officer)
Phone: 0114 2053582
Email: Danny.Gilhooly@sheffield.gov.uk

See LASOS in action