Building a better Family Information Service with Buckinghamshire Council - A developer’s view on adopting the standard

Stuart Mackenzie, Executive Director Quality & Product of FutureGov talks about adopting the Open Referral UK data standard with Buckinghamshire Council to create a new database schema for their Family Information Service.

Challenges

Throughout our lives, people need to find information in their local area on everything from childcare to support services. This need is usually met through confusing online directories with inaccurate, or even incomplete, data. Many of which don’t help residents in their search for information.

Following the Childcare Act 2006, when the statutory duty arose to share this information online, the rush to create online directories saw products introduced that overlooked the need to understand the type of information residents are looking for. This has resulted in the creation of tools at an extra cost to local authorities that stifle innovation, increase vendor lock-in and limit the value of content and data.

Buckinghamshire recognised an opportunity to tailor an effective, sustainable, open-source product for the Buckinghamshire Family Information Service.

Process

Building on our experience as West Sussex County Council’s Local Offer partner and previous service directory projects with Hackney and Buckinghamshire Adults Services, we wanted to use the OpenReferral UK data standard, replacing Buckinghamshire's existing system (Open Objects).

Using the Open Referral UK data standard, we created a new database schema with a new, custom-built admin tool, an open API and a public-facing front-end application for users to find local childcare and Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services. We then migrated the current database over and built a standard-compliant open API on top of it so the data can be accessed.

We developed the new system in a way that separates the user-facing tool from the admin interface to open up the potential for re-use across different service areas within the council.

The public-facing tool supports residents to find high quality, trusted advice, services and events that match their unique needs. We’ve built on insights from Buckinghamshire’s local offer co-design sessions to conduct remote one-on-one testing sessions with families and young people. These sessions have helped us to understand the different journeys people go through, the advice they’re looking for and the information they need.

Working closely with the council, we’re also identifying how to rationalise categories and apply filters to offer a simple navigation that allows residents to easily search for events and advice, reducing the time spent searching for the information they need.

The second part of the system is the admin interface, where staff and providers can easily and securely manage service information. Staff can effectively govern and moderate the content to continuously ensure that quality and relevance is maintained. The most crucial part of the work has been connecting these new tools to Ofsted's data feed of registered childcare providers. This is how councils get up-to-date information about who is allowed to provide childcare in an area.

There are only a small number of providers who are Ofsted approved to work with this feed, so there's been little space for innovation in this market. We’re proud to now be an approved Ofsted supplier and challenge the status quo with an open-source, modern application.

Benefits

We’re passionate about building flexible products using modern technology and tooling to meet user needs. We put emphasis on using open interoperable standards and technologies that allow products to evolve, adapt and respond to changes in use and technology trends.

Making sense of the historic data was challenging due to its size and messy and inconsistent format in the backend. We dedicated a large amount of time to identifying which fields should be migrated and determining where and how this affected the application code.

Aligning to the Open Referral UK data standard allows Buckinghamshire’s service data to be programmatically read alongside similar service directory endpoints that are also in the same standardised format, which makes the data easier to maintain and allows it to be shared across multiple interfaces and products.

Lessons learned

We started this project in February 2020 with COVID-19 changing things about 10 weeks into the work. Moving to remote working forced us to rethink our approach with service staff, as we wanted to encourage the sharing and communicating of progress, allocating tasks and gathering feedback effectively.

Rethinking our approach in this changing context, we were able to make this experience simple and automated, using alerts and version history to provide greater transparency and reduce manual tasks for staff, freeing up their time to support providers and families. We’ve also integrated an open-source analytics tool to support data-driven decision making, which will ensure statutory reporting compliance. This tool will also allow staff to report on the service provision in their local areas.