Supporting councils with a Cyber Incident Response service
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is making a new Cyber Incident Response service available to English councils, helping them to respond to severe cyber incidents.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is making a new Cyber Incident Response service available to English councils, helping them to respond to severe cyber incidents.
User research is underway on standardising planning decision notices. Local authorities currently use different formats to record planning application outcomes, but standardisation would make crucial data instantly available for effective planning, analysis and forecasting. The data standards community has been providing invaluable feedback on where standardisation can deliver the biggest positive impact for the sector.
Following rigorous judging, 12 project teams have been selected from 84 applications to tackle three fundamental problems holding back housing delivery in England. Working alongside local authority and developer partners, each innovator will work until March 2026 testing their solutions in the real world.
An intranet is an essential digital platform that connects employees within an organisation, giving them easy access to internal news and resources. Sian, content designer, shares how user-centred design transformed our department's intranet, streamlining communication, knowledge sharing and accessibility to help our UK-wide staff work more productively and efficiently.
Open Digital Planning (ODP) is becoming a powerful force for change in local government, allowing planning authorities to modernise planning services. With 24 authorities joining this month, through the Digital Planning Improvement Fund, the movement is gaining momentum. Read about how ODP brings councils and experts together to drive innovation in the planning sector.
To help councils operate as intelligent buyers and support suppliers to meet sector ambitions, we are developing a software market intelligence tool.
Energy performance certificates (EPCs) help people understand how energy efficient their buildings are and what they can do to improve it. They’re used by landlords, renters and buyers, homeowners but also by policy teams. Find out how we’re applying user research and user-centred design principles to redesign the EPC, to better meet user needs.
We’re pleased to share a milestone in our social housing data work, the delivery of a new data standard to support Awaab’s Law.
User researchers in the Elections Digital team are working on initiatives to improve voter registration by making the process simple and accessible. Find out how the team has been improving its understanding of the mobile-first experience of many citizens interacting with digital election services and what they learned along the way.
Crucial planning decisions data is stored inconsistently across different local authority systems. We're now expanding our data specification work to standardise planning application decisions, creating consistent data flow throughout the system. Help shape this work to ensure it helps local authorities, central government, developers, and communities better understand how our places are changing.