Data standard for interchange and querying of public services
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Category
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Data
Challenge owners
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**Ben Unsworth** Head of Service Transformation, Essex County Council
To feed back directly on this challenge, or for questions, contact data-standards-authority@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk
Short description
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When seeking assistance, users of public and voluntary sector services will find a huge amount of lists, registers, activities and advisors. This can prove difficult to navigate by service users, their carers, and by anyone else working in the public services sector who needs to find reliable information simply and quickly - and ideally from a single source.
A single organisation can have multiple directories itself, and these can have varying quality and richness. Data quality issues can also make organisations or even separate departments within them feel the need to create their own directories, instead of reusing existing ones from other places.
This can all lead to information that is not reliable, timely or complete enough to recommend services quickly, leading to delayed action by having to carry out further research.
This challenge seeks to find an agreed standard for directories of human services data that helps users find trusted, specific and personalised search results that are appropriate to where people live and what they need, in the time they have available. This standard seeks to cut down on long lists of potential service providers and reduce time people spend in finding the help they need.
The [Open Referral UK data standard](https://openreferraluk.org/) - a UK extension of the Open Referral standard - is already a very strong example of a possible standard, but we'd like to hear about other standards, or possible revisions of existing standards, to review during the consultation process.
User need
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The basic user need for this standard is to make relevant content easier to find. The [Adur & Worthing Councils OpenCommunity Beta](https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and-specialists/opportunities/13383) for adopting the Open Referral UK data standard provides a good range of example user needs:
- As someone seeking information, I need to know what services are available locally, so that I can meet my health, care, and other needs
- As the admin of a service directory, I need to publish data so that it is searchable, and easily integrated as a data service
- As a service provider, I want to update my details once, so people and organisations can easily access what I provide
- As a national provider, I want to access local service directories, including integrations as a data service
- As a developer, I need to connect to data about local services, so that I can build useful services
- As a service owner, I need technical and governance support, so that I can successfully implement the Open Referral UK data standard
- As a link worker I need to be able to identify services that meet my clients' needs for which they are eligible
Expected benefits
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We expect a good standard to:
- Define a single data structure with consistent definitions to be used by all stakeholders
- Define what data elements make up a rich service record that is effective for users or clients to query the service's suitability
- Enable non-proprietary means of interchanging data between software products with minimum cost and vendor tie-in
- Provide a simple language for querying service directories that can be adopted by service finder applications, independent of who is publishing the data
We are looking for a standard that is compatible with UK-specific requirements. It should define the structure for human services data delivered primarily by local authorities, solely or in conjunction with other partners across the wider public or third sectors, as well as across central government and devolved administrations.
Functional needs
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The standard should provide the name and organisation delivering each service. It should indicate how the service is accessed (for example online, drop-in, referral or home visit) and provide links and/or contact details to help people gain easy access to the service.
The standard should define the following data entities for rich service information:
- Service types
- Eligibility types for service users
- Eligibility constraints due to a user's demographic profile or location
- Costs
- Schedules
- Locations
- Location accessibility
- Reviews and/or endorsements by official organisations
The standard should permit use of any taxonomies of terms for types of service, organisation, eligibility, cost and other elements. Well-managed national and international taxonomies should also be encouraged.
The standard should define machine-readable means of:
- Extracting a full list of services
- Extracting full details of each service
- Querying services to find those matching most common selection criteria
The standard should be maintained in a way that gives confidence in its longevity, providing for incremental improvements that result from a consensus amongst its users.
Prerequisites
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The standard must be interoperable with other relevant standards, meaning it has to:
- adhere to existing [metadata standards guidance](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/metadata-standards-for-sharing-and-publishing-data), reference data best practice and in particular [guidance already issued in the description of geospatial data](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/best-practice-guidance-and-tools-for-geospatial-data-managers) (for example, in service locations)
follow [personal and organisational identity standards](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/identity-proofing-and-authentication) (for example, when identifying citizens and service providers within the referral process)
