The dxw team is working with the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) and MHCLG on a 6-week alpha project to test ideas for extracting and standardizing data from local development plans. In the first week, they reviewed discovery work and local plan examples, mapped the plan-making domain, and will test an "index card" approach with local authorities. Next steps include prototyping a webpage to present standardizes policy information and testing this prototype with users to inform further development. The goal is to explore establishing a common language and data standards for local plans across authorities.

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Local plans alpha – weeknotes w/e 10 April
Background
The planning process is complicated and dynamic. Local plans are a rich source of information,
but the data used to produce that information isn’t easily extracted. Plans are published in a
wide range of formats and aren’t always consistent in the types of information they include, or
how they define or represent that information. This makes it difficult to collect, use and
compare data across local plans and difficult for machines to read the data.
The Digital Land team at MHCLG carried outa discovery project on local plans during summer
2019. They spoke with representatives of the main user groups of local plans in order to better
understand their needs from local plans and the obstacles to those needs being met. The
discovery identified users’ problems with extracting data from local plans and opportunities for
solving some of these.
dxw and the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) are now working on an alpha with MCHLG to test
ideas for the better use of data held about, and within Local Plans.
The alpha phase is to test ideas and riskiest assumptions in order to establish that there is a
service to be built (or not). Learning that approaches don’t work is as important as learning that
they do. The value is only realised by repeating research and tests with real users.
What are we thinking about?
After an inception period to set the project up, we started our first two week delivery sprint
just before the Easter break. In total, we’ll be working for 3 sprints (6 weeks) so we’ll be
working at pace to make sure we deliver the project outputs. These outputs will include tested
prototypes, a recommendation report, and importantly a clear understanding of whether data
standards for local plans are a viable proposition.
Building on the work from discovery, the team has been carrying out some mapping of the plan
making domain and has sketched out an example ‘index card’ for the policies held within local
plans. We want toquickly test this approach with users in local authorities to see how well it

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matches their existing models (actual and mental).
We need tobe clear aboutthe scope of this work – we’re exploring approaches for applying
structure to the data held aboutlocal plans. There will be many improvements that could be
tested for the plan making process itself, but these are out of the immediate scope for this
work.
What have we done in thelast week?
We held our first sprint planning session. The goal for our first sprint is to Explore a way of
explaining planning policies effectively – is there a common language amongst LPAs for plan making?
We’ve reviewed the discovery outputs in detail, as well as reviewing a set of published local
plans on local authority websites.
We ran a domain mapping workshop to explore the relationships between points of data in the
plan making process.
What are we planning to donext?
We’ll carry out some early testing of our thinking around an ‘index card’ with local authorities.
The outputsof that testing will enable the prototyping of an exemplar web page to present
information about an authority’s local development scheme/local plan. This prototyping means
we can properly explore the possibilities around a common language.
We’ll run testing of the prototype with users, using the feedback to inform what we design and
test next.
Who ison the team?
Debs Durojaiye (designer, dxw)
Samantha Opara (user researcher, dxw)
Alex Yedigaroff (transformation manager, dxw)
Richard Crawley (planning expert, PAS)
Stephen Barker (planning expert, PAS)

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Paul Downey (service owner, MHCLG Digital Land)
Sarah Hunt (project lead, MHCLG planning)
Andrew Langley (MHCLG planning)
Natalie Record (MHCLGDigital Land)