West Sussex County Council has become the first local authority to give residents open access to its performance data.
The new software will allow people to find out how the council is performing against its key targets in almost real time. The information can then be integrated with other websites and social media feeds.
Louise Goldsmith, leader of West Sussex County Council, said: ‘Moving from paper to digital and giving residents the opportunity to see our performance at the same time as we do opens our accountability and gives us a very visual way of explaining how and what we’re doing for our residents and communities, where and how we are spending the council tax. It’s very much in line with our agenda to be more transparent and open.
’Of course we want to do the very best for our residents and deliver really good services and this system helps us with that ambition. It brings an honest focus to the services we are not providing as effectively as we could or in comparison with other areas of the country and this helps our residents to hold us to account. We need to be aware of these facts to help us to improve.’
GovSat, which has cost the council £20,000, will display performance against 12 key targets such as preparing young people for work and growing the number of jobs in the local economy.
