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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.

Research template for a digital library

Council name: London Borough of Croydon

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Partners: London Borough of Southwark, Gloucestershire County Council, Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, East Cambridgeshire District Council, Huntingdonshire District Council, Fenland District Council

Status: Not funded

Themes: Libraries

The digital revolution has changed library user behaviour and nationally footfall loans are decreasing. The experience for users is inconsistent and councils aren’t keeping up with digital trends. We propose to conduct research into digital library services and produce a template for user research that all local authorities can benefit…

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…

Visualising missed collection performance to enable waste management to make decisions and intervene to improve the service and relationship with communities

Council name: North East Lincolnshire Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Partners: Leeds City Council, North Lincolnshire Council, Ryedale District Council and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council

Status: Not funded

Understanding the wider scale of opportunity by engaging across multiple local authorities to test appetite for adoption of our previous Alpha proposal and resulting prototype.  Exploring the ICT landscape and estate of each authority and what that says about the national picture. Exploring the larger procurement landscape, plans and costs…

Developing a playbook, made up of a self-assessment tool and guides for FOI service delivery, so that FOI managers and practitioners can identify approaches for improvement.

Council name: London Borough of Hackney

Stage: Funding application – Beta

Partners: Cornwall Council, Stevenage Borough Council and Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Status: Not funded

Themes: Freedom of information

One of the key unmet needs across local authorities discovered in the alpha project was the ‘10,000ft problem’ - a way to give FOI teams a means of assessing their service and identifying approaches for improvement. While the case management technology in place can have a dramatic effect on performance,…

Taxi driver licensing applications – fixing complexity, inefficiency and risk

Council name: Gateshead Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Partners: Leeds City Council, Northumberland County Council and Sunderland City Council

Status: Not funded

Themes: Taxi Licencing

The common problem we propose to investigate builds on the previous discovery, Taxi licensing – fixing complexity, inefficiency and risk. This round of discovery will focus on one service within the taxi licencing space, new taxi driver applications. The aim is to refine user stories collected with an emphasis on…

Exploring wider use of the Ministry of Justice open source correspondence tool to support better case management of FOI requests and SARs

Council name: London Borough of Hackney

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Partners: Cornwall Council and Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Status: Not funded

Themes: Freedom of information

During our previous project looking into better case management of FOI and SAR requests, we were approached by the MOJ about an open source correspondence tool that they developed and use internally. We investigated the tool, made some rough prototypes on how it could be expanded to match the capabilities…

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,…

Concept deployment of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) across shared partnership

Council name: Stevenage Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

Stevenage Borough Council and East Herts District Council run  shared ICT and Revenue and benefits partnership. At present many processes and information transfers within both organisations are a manual process.  Both councils wish to initiate a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to reduce manual processes. There are many iterative processes within…

Creating a common Digital Data Protection Impact Assessment to Ensure Organisational Compliance

Council name: Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Partners: NHS Digital, GMHSCP, Information Sharing Gateway, Stockport Council, GM Local Authorities IG Group, GM Health IG Group

Status: Not funded

Building on some of the successes of our previous Alpha phase project we plan to further develop our prototype Digital Data Protection Impact Assessment tool using the evidence base provided by conducting more in depth user research to ensure we are able to capture and articulate the benefits we know…

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 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. …

Digital identification and support of vulnerable citizens pre-crisis.

Council name: Mid Sussex District Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

TellJO is a digital self-assessment sent out by a local authority to its customers, enabling the local authority to proactively identify and engage with their vulnerable citizens at pre-crisis. The discovery phase of the TellJO project was funded by TellJO as a pilot to test the following hypotheses: 1.Do people…

Exploring a Digital Data Tool to Accelerate SME led House Building

Council name: Gateshead Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

The alpha stage of the project will be the development of a digital planning tool (the Tool) which will be a live functional prototype based on Gateshead Council data to support the SME house building industry. The project objective is to develop a product that is scalable to the extent…

Hydration Innovation – exploring a digital solution to improve hydration in care home residents

Council name: North Somerset Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

A full PDF of application with diagrams will be sent to [email protected] The Discovery Phase of the Hydration Innovation project was supported by a £30k grant from the Local Government Association (LGA) and NHS Digital (NHSD) ‘Social Care Digital Innovation Programme’.  A 78-bed dementia care home in North Somerset provided…

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…

Addressing low engagement in extracurricular activities by children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, by targeting inequalities of opportunity to reduce social, economic and employment barriers, and improve social mobility

Council name: Cambridge City Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

At our discovery phase we delivered XP and XPlore: a small-scale project with 339 children and young people in 6 schools, living in areas of higher deprivation and low social mobility, with a higher concentration of children receiving free school meals (FSM); to understand what methods would increase their extra-curricular…

Data-Led Digital Discharge - Support, Enable, Empower, to Prevent Re-entry (encourage self caring rather than Council reliant services)

Council name: London Borough of Havering

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

This solution has been chosen from our discovery outcomes due to the disparity digital / IoT deployments across Newham, Havering, Brent & LBBD already with digital technologies across: Older Adult Extra Care Schemes Learning Disability Schemes Independent Living Post Hospital Discharge Adult & LD Living Independently in the community It…

Attainment Automation for Looked After Children and Care Leaver case management systems to address monitoring, tracking and reporting requirements.

Council name: London Borough of Newham

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

The CLA Live Web Application - SaaS is currently in use by Newham Virtual School and Barking and Dagenham Virtual School. It has proven itself to be successful as a specialist tool to track and monitor EET, manage the integrated preparation of Education Plans with key professionals around the child…

Build a standardised re-usable, affordable, EHCP portal.

Council name: Warrington Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

The objective is to build a portal that will allow people to use a common system across different Local Authorities, will support standardisation of information and will break the vendor lock-in created by existing proprietary technologies. The project will leverage prior Discovery projects: “Single View of a Child” delivered by…

TRO data model alpha

Council name: Department for Transport

Stage: Funding application – Alpha

Status: Not funded

Background - Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) are the orders behind restrictions on the road network, giving legal force to temporary closures for roadworks or permanent changes. In an ongoing review of how to simplify and improve the processes behind making a TRO, the Department established the TRO Discovery Project -…