Weeknote - 23 June 2023

It’s been a little while since our last week note, but we’re keen to get back into the habit of frequently posting again.

Since our last update there have been some changes to how we’re organising ourselves as the ‘planning data team’. We’ve brought the two teams (data standards and platform operations) together under a single service owner. We’re hoping that this will enable us to work more efficiently to a shared vision. Paul wrote more about this in his blog post.

Taking stock and shining a light

As a part of the team resetting we’re taking the opportunity to take stock of how things are currently working. Sarah (Fox), Colm and Paul (Smith) have been documenting our end-to-end service map. At each step in the map they’ve been identifying what measures and metrics we can put in place, firstly to establish a baseline picture of where we are and then to use as a way of measuring improvements.

Petrea has also started leading a mini-discovery to help us understand the various ways that we’re currently collecting feedback. As an initial step we’re looking at who is providing feedback, the types of feedback we’re getting and the ways in which feedback is reaching us.

Prioritising datasets

In a similar theme of shining a light on where we’re currently at we’ve now published our upcoming priorities from a data standards perspective as well as our long backlog of ‘planning concerns’ that have come up in various conversations about having a need for data.

It’s worth pointing out that the many of the items on the backlog haven’t yet been validated and that there’s a vary level of granularity across each of the concerns.

If you think something is missing from the list you can let us know!

Improving how we managing guidance

Adam, Paul (Smith) and Gwen have been working together to understand how we can use what we’ve previously been calling the ‘standards manager’ to help us better manage guidance content.

Paul has begun sketching out some wireframes to show the flow of how we could better manage guidance content.

Changes to the specification page

We’ve made some changes to the specification page. Based on feedback from LPAs we’ve tried to make it easier to understand where in the process a specification is, and what each stage means.

Meeting Historic England

Earlier this week we met with some of the folk from Historic England to talk about their open data hub.

There was a lot of really useful discussion but two main things came from it. Firstly, we’ll have a follow-up conversation about how we can potentially use their API to get updated data (such as listed buildings) onto planning.data.gov.uk in a more timely manner. And secondly, we’ll be arranging a joint show and tell with them so that we can share what each time has learnt and potentially establish some common best practices and patterns.

Working with local planning authorities

This week we caught up with Southwark, Dover, Newcastleand Salford to check whether our guidance makes sense and to help them to get their data to standard. We’ve also had a kick-off meeting with Buckinghamshire where we introduced our standards, guidance and specification.