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Benefits of the Local Government Data Platform

The Local Government Data Platform aims to improve and streamline the management of data returns and to derive greater value from the process by providing additional insight and intelligence to local government itself.

The platform will also support improvement to data quality, reducing the timeliness of data, and will ensure greater assurance for data requesters, such as Scottish Government.

It will help to drive the much-needed transformation in the current data reporting landscape, delivering the following benefits for local government:

  • Improving the governance arrangements for managing the lifecycle of data returns
  • Reducing the effort required to collate and provide data within councils
  • Improving the coordination of data collection across local government to reduce the impact on service delivery teams
  • Improving the timeliness and quality of data collected to increase the value of the data for local government, and improve trust in local government data and decision-making
  • Providing richer insight from the data collected for local government and individual councils
  • Delivering efficiency savings through greater automation and use of a shared system.

Over time, reduced manual effort will be required within each council associated with providing data returns to external bodies, freeing up time for service delivery.

Quantifiable benefits

  • Improved quality of the data that is provided to external bodies by local government.
  • Improved strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making within councils as a consequence of greater access to local government and data about individual councils that has been collected for external agencies.
  • Improved control of access to local government data to external bodies.

Non-quantifiable benefits

  • Improved trust in local government data and decision-making.
  • Improved governance of local government data returns.

Alongside these longer-term benefits, the project has already delivered the following benefits:

Joseph Gavart - Project Manager, Data and Intelligence
Emily Lynch - Programme Manager, Performance Management & Benchmarking