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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.

Supporting residents by leveraging Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Council name: Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Local Authorities (LA) face a shared problem: they manage a wide range of services and receive a high volume of visits and calls to reception and contact centres from which common questions are frequently asked by residents (users), as well as freedom of information enquirers. The information made available on…

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 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…

Maximising the potential of digital in improving healthy lifestyle behaviour at a population level

Council name: London Borough of Southwark

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Across the UK, our population is growing increasingly unhealthy, with more people developing chronic conditions. That in turn reduces their ability to work, live independently and participate in society. There are also significant inequalities, with those living in more deprived areas having significantly worse health outcomes. This places a financial…

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 how local authorities can effectively engage people and develop their cultures to successfully implement digital transformation.

Council name: Rushmoor Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Local Authorities are undertaking digital transformation so that we can meet our residents’ raised expectations. We have had some success digitising services but found it harder to engage our staff and develop our cultures. We believe there are some factors limiting full digital transformation: Difficulties engaging with people and creating…

Creating a digital planning maturity audit across the entire planning process from policy, monitoring and strategy to development management and decision making; to streamline and automate the end to end process and deliver an open, transparent and efficient data led service

Council name: London Borough of Camden

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Like many other authorities Camden’s Planning Service is an end to end service that covers all aspects of planning from plan making (strategic planning, local plans, planning guidance and supporting neighbourhood planning); place shaping (master planning and urban design); decision taking; monitoring; planning for infrastructure (including S106 agreements and CIL);…

Young people, digital media and councils.

Council name: Hastings Borough Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Our initial research suggests there is currently a gap between young people, particularly aged 16-24, and their local councils. For the Discovery phase we are focusing on young people and their lack of interaction with local councils. Local councils should, in theory, be approachable, the most tangible and most trustworthy…

Exploring Wi-Fi print solutions to reduce silo investigations, enable better purchasing decisions and open up collaborative purchasing efficiencies between authorities.

Council name: Nottingham City Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

This Discovery Project looks to explore Wi-Fi print solutions so that local authorities have a greater understanding of the available solutions in the common marketplace and can make better informed purchasing or development decisions on the best solution to meet their demand, budget, audience and environment. [SEE LOCAL DIGITAL FUND…

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 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 issues around a sharable model of IoT standards for security, interoperability and data so that emerging IoT applications can be incorporated into a standard framework.

Council name: Roayl Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Internet technologies around IoT are promising radical improvements in how we serve our residents and businesses. This gives rise to a range of emerging opportunities to achieve significant social and economic benefits for our communities. However, we need to make sure that we put people first and foremost in this…

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 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 Customer Identity Management and Shared Digital Services between Districts and County to save costs on shared services and improve customer experience at local government level.

Council name: South Norfolk Council

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

We would like to look into how we can, as separate authorities, deliver joined up digital services to our collective customers, as if we were a single authority, but maintain council identities over a shared service platform. The separation of District and County services is not understood by the general…

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 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 GDPR impact on planning data-sharing projects in local borough areas and possible interventions so that data-sharing projects can be designed and implemented with confidence that GDPR requirements are met

Council name: London Borough of Hounslow

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Councils and partners collect large amounts of data in the course of their work, which if joined up could bring much greater insight and better inform policy and strategy design. However much of this data is collected for a specific purpose, project or for compliance with particular legislation and is…

Creating a high-level design for partial online birth registration; to provide greater customer convenience and improve overall efficiency.

Council name: General Register Office

Stage: Funding application – Discovery

Status: Not funded

Existing civil registration processes require citizens to attend lengthy (30-40 minute) appointments with a registrar, to provide information for a birth or death to be registered. As with death registration, birth registration includes a significant amount of manual data entry and does not facilitate flexible, convenient or efficient service options…