Ian Singleton, Citizen Visionary Architect at IEG4 describes the project and workshops:
It is generally accepted that people have needs. Some people have the capacity to meet their needs themselves, others have less capacity. There are events that happen to us in life when we then need more support e.g having a baby or becoming ill. Circumstances of life can leave us with issues that are difficult to resolve without support. We all have, at times, often at new year, aspirations to improve our lives in some way e.g eat more healthily, stop smoking or drink less alcohol or seek a better work life balance, yet often we will struggle to achieve these things on our own.
If we ignore needs, issues and don’t try to improve ourselves then there is a risk that we will find ourselves needing much greater support further down the line. Often this will be a cost to the public purse.
There are many community and public services that are available to help us with our needs, issues and aspirations. It is recognised that if people do access these support services then it is likely to prevent crisis further down the line. Often we are unaware of the services and/or struggle to access them. The LGA is asking a simple question to focus their work on open standards – ‘Can we produce an app that a citizen can simply tick boxes to describe their circumstances which will then suggest appropriate local services that they are eligible for?’
iNetwork is collaborating with the LGA, IEG4 and other officers from a cross section of organisations in the North West to try to build a prototype app and at the same time provide suggestions for open standards to help citizens find services that can meet their needs.
There will be three workshops focusing on the following 8 questions:
1. What services are in scope?
2. What are the risks and benefits?
3. What information does a citizen want to know about a support service?
4. What info describes a citizen who might want to consume a support service?
5. How can we identify services to suggest given a citizen’s circumstances?
6. How can we obtain service data?
7. How can we assure the data quality?
8. How can we assure the service quality?