Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to make a Freedom of Information request in connection with the DCLG's website "Local Priorities"
(http://www.localpriorities.communities.g...).

In summary, I would like to know what specific purpose the website was intended to serve, what improvements are planned for the future, how much it cost to establish, and how much it is budgeted to cost for ongoing maintenance.

To that end, please would you send me:

Any internal documents produced by the department that would explain the intended purpose of the website (e.g. briefings or specifications for third party contractors bidding to establish and maintain the website).

Any internal documents produced by the department that describe future improvements to the website (e.g. a high level plan or specification describing any new features intended for the website in future).

The department's high level budget for the establishment of the website, including internal and third party resources.

The department's high level budget for the ongoing maintenance of the website, including internal and third party resources.

Thanks for your assistance with this request.

Yours faithfully,

Etienne Pollard

FOI request - LPW.doc
061027 DCLG IR procedures.pdf

Dear Mr Pollard

Please find attached a letter, and accompanying leaflet, responding to your recent request for information.

Best wishes,

Jane Todorovic
<<FOI request - LPW.doc>> <<061027 DCLG IR procedures.pdf>>
Jane Todorovic
Local Performance: Strategy
Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

020 7944 4578
07500 225362

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Dear Jane Todorovic,

Thank you for your helpful reply regarding the specification and purpose of the local priorities website. The data that you sent through was exactly what I had hoped you would be able to provide, which is greatly appreciated.

Reading through the website spec, I noticed that there was a specific intention to name the LAAs for a given LA, but not to provide the values. There was also an intention to provide links to the LAA contract documents (where available) and to the FTI analytical website. I have looked through several of Camden's LAAs on the local priorities website, but have found no link to either the contracts or the FTI site. Did these links not make into the final version, or is data for Camden not available?

While it is certainly helpful for people to know the names of the LAAs that are being targeted in their area, I don't quite understand why you don't publish the actual targets (and maybe even the achievements in due course)? Many of the LAAs are quantitative targets against known baselines, and for most of these the description on its own isn't very helpful without the accompanying data. Some additional data would make it quite a lot more useful - for example, the current/baseline and target performance for each LAA, and eventually the performance data for each LAA.

I would suggest that the lack of hard data makes it less likely that it would "make LAAs real to people in communities and for them to be able to access information in a way that’s meaningful to them". I would also argue that it doesn't fulfil the requirement that "the website/microsite should provide statistics and data".

At the moment, the only way to find out the hard numbers for an LAA target seems to be by carefully and laboriously search the website of the relevant LA for their LAA performance reports. I know from personal experience (Camden) that this takes a long time, and I suspect that it's going to be too much hassle for many (perhaps most) of the people who visit the local priorities website. The absence of any data certainly takes away any possibility of being able to scan through the LAAs and understand which are challenging targets, which are likely to be achieved, and so on.

Despite the above, I still think that it's a useful starting point, and I hope that it will be expanded with some hard data in due course. Finally, I would like to thank you again for your helpful reply to my FOI request, which helped me to understand the thinking behind the website.

Yours sincerely,

Etienne Pollard

Dear Mr Pollard

Thank you for your further enquiry and useful feedback on the Local Priorities website. Your suggestions are ones that we are considering for future developments of the website.

Regards,

Jane Todorovic

Jane Todorovic
Local Performance: Strategy
Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

020 7944 4578
07500 225362

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