This article was written by Mike Thacker, Porism
The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Local Digital team runs a cluster of projects working to promote adoption of open data standards. Our own project, Scalable Approach to Vulnerability via Interoperability (SAVVI), is one of those. These projects have highlighted the importance of consistent standards for categorising information via taxonomies.
Taxonomies are of particular importance to SAVVI and its sister standard, Open Referral UK (ORUK), where we need to categorise vulnerability factors, types of need, types of service and measures of impact in a way that lets us identify people/households who are likely to be vulnerable, how we can help them and resultant outcomes.
A workshop on 3 October 2024 brought together specialists from different parts of Government to review common needs in relation to taxonomies and what mechanisms are needed to create and manage taxonomies. We’re now reviewing draft conclusions and recommendations for MHCLG to consider alongside plans for the Government as a whole.
SAVVI welcomes the invitation from Government to contribute to the wider thought leadership around a national approach to data, that this workshop contributes to. We are keen to continue to work closely with sister standards, such as ORUK, to build and support the infrastructure for an ecosystem of interoperable standards.
Find out More and Get Involved
If you are interested in learning more about the SAVVI project, please do not hesitate to get in touch. You can reach us at info@savviuk.org. Tech suppliers interested in what the SAVVI standards could mean for them are invited to join the SAVVI Tech Group through techUK.
If you are interested in learning more about ORUK, you can reach them at hello@openreferraluk.org