EURIM Value of Information Subgroup

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The importance of information, the current state of play

Audit Commission, Is there Something I should Know?’, July 09

Written for CEOs, Senior officials & Members in Councils. The aim is to raise the profile of the value & power of information; inform strategic & resource planning; demonstrates the need for significant improvements in how Councils use information; and provide links to a toolkit.

“In straitened times, information has an even more crucial role to play in driving down costs, while maintaining high standards”.

Main findings are that although 94% of councils say that information is now a strategic priority, 76% lack the capability and capacity to put this into practice. Decisions that affect the cost, quality and effectiveness of public services are not currently driven by robust information (80% say a lack of in-depth analysis is a major problem). Similarly poor data quality puts councils at significant risk but less than 5% of local authorities have excellent data quality.

These problems can be overcome without spending more, by good management and learning from exemplar councils. A high quality intelligence or information unit can be provided with under 0.2% of a council's expenditure.

Councils should:

• use the self assessment framework & toolkit to identify & address areas for improvement
   

• foster greater professionalism in information function including recruiting, training and retaining skilled staff
   

• ensure a clear competency framework to help councils improve the skills base and overall performance of research, intelligence and information units;

The Audit Commission will assess councils on the information available to support decision making in ‘use of resources key line of enquiry (KLOE)’ and publish the results, and will update guidance for KLOE to reflect the findings from this study.

The report identifies some case studies eg:

Lewisham :Analysis enabled the council to generate £250k pa in increased rent and re-housed people more quickl by identifying and removing barriers to re-letting housing stock - reducing void time  from 43 to 24 days.