About
This is a briefing to explain how iStandUK is taking on the stewardship and promotion of the Open Referral UK Data Standard.
Executive Summary
Open Referral UK (ORUK) is an open data standard that provides a consistent way to describe, publish and share information about services such as those delivered by local authorities, health partners, community organisations and national programmes. As iStandUK takes on stewardship of ORUK, there is an opportunity to position it not simply as a directory format, but as a core component of place-based digital infrastructure across the UK public sector.
Local authorities already maintain multiple service listings to meet statutory information duties covering adult social care, SEND, childcare, housing and wellbeing. ORUK offers a shared data model that can unify these fragmented directories, reduce duplication and enable services to be published once and reused across websites, referral tools and national platforms. Wider adoption across central government, including health, education, employment and cultural sectors, would represent a significant tipping point, allowing ORUK to function as a cross-government interoperability layer rather than a collection of local initiatives.
For residents, ORUK supports clearer access to local support through more consistent, up-to-date information. For front-line practitioners, it enables faster and more confident signposting and referrals. For planners and commissioners, it provides a shared view of local provision that can inform evidence-based decision-making.
At a place level, ORUK can act as the foundation of a reusable “Place API”, exposing authoritative services data to digital tools, social prescribing systems and emerging AI-enabled services.
The timing for ORUK is strong. Public expectations for digital access to services are increasing, organisations face pressure to reduce duplication, and the emergence of AI and intelligent search tools is driving demand for structured, machine-readable service information. Combined with complementary standards such as SAVVI, which focuses on understanding need and vulnerability, ORUK helps connect insight to action, supporting prevention-focused, integrated public services built around place.
Current adoption reflects an early but active ecosystem. A small number of local authorities and partner organisations are publishing live ORUK feeds, supported by an emerging supplier market capable of both publishing and consuming structured services data. This provides a foundation on which broader adoption can grow, particularly as demand increases for place-based collaboration, integrated care and AI-enabled service discovery.
MHCLG has invited iStandUK to take on stewardship and promotion of the ORUK standard, transitioning from a centrally supported programme to a sustainable, standards-led model. To manage risk and build capability progressively, iStandUK proposes a phased approach: a Minimal phase to ensure continuity, a Standstill phase to establish stable operations, and an Incubation phase focused on adoption, supplier engagement and strategic growth. Early pilots, including work with Greater Manchester Combined Authority, provide an opportunity to develop repeatable adoption models and demonstrate the value of ORUK as a shared national asset for place-based digital services.
About Open Referral UK
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Open Referral UK data is a standard that gives a consistent way of recording and sharing information about services. |
Open Referral UK (ORUK) is a set of open data standards which define a consistent approach to publishing a directory of services.
ORUK has been endorsed by the UK Government Data Standards Authority, as a data standard intended to support consistent recording and sharing of service information across government.
You can find out more about Open Referral UK at https://www.openreferraluk.org.
Why Open Referral UK?
Open Referral UK is not simply a technical data model. It addresses long-standing challenges across the UK public sector in maintaining accurate, reusable information about local services.
Why Open Referral for UK Local Authorities?
UK local authorities are subject to a range of statutory duties to provide residents with information and advice about local services. Councils typically meet these duties by publishing structured online directories of services and community support.
Key statutory information duties include:
Adult Social Care — Information and Advice – Care Act 2014
Local authorities must establish and maintain a service providing information and advice relating to care and support, including preventative services and support available locally.
SEND Local Offer — Children and Families Act 2014
Local authorities must publish a “Local Offer” describing education, health and social care services expected to be available for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Family Information Service — Childcare Act 2006
Local authorities must maintain an information service providing parents and carers with details of childcare and other services supporting families.
Housing Advice and Homelessness Prevention — Housing Act 1996 / Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
Local housing authorities must ensure free advice and information is available about homelessness prevention, rights and available support services.
Public Health and Wellbeing Information — Health and Social Care Act 2012
Local authorities must promote public health and make accessible information about services that support health improvement and wellbeing. In practice this is often delivered through integrated wellbeing or “Live Well” directories alongside Care Act information duties.
In addition to these statutory duties, many councils maintain broader service directories covering:
- Local Welfare Assistance and crisis support
- Integrated “Live Well” or community wellbeing directories
- Social prescribing and community assets – for example bereavement support, coffee mornings, walking groups, lunch clubs, Men’s Sheds and similar preventative activities.
- Cultural, leisure, and community safety services
These directories are often maintained separately by adult social care, children’s services, public health and housing teams, resulting in multiple overlapping service listings, and duplicated effort to collect and assure service information.
Open Referral UK provides a consistent data model that can unify these directories while supporting statutory information duties. Resident self-help and referral to non-statutory services reduces costs incurred by the public sector.
Why Open Referral for the UK Public Sector?
The Open Referral UK (ORUK) standard is relevant to government departments and agencies because it provides a consistent way to describe and exchange information about local services.
This enables departments and agencies to:
- consume structured data about services delivered locally by councils, health bodies and the voluntary sector
- publish information about national or commissioned services so that they appear within local service directories and referral pathways.
Adoption beyond local government represents a significant tipping point, enabling ORUK to function as shared national infrastructure rather than a collection of local directories.
NHS England and Integrated Care Systems
Health services increasingly rely on social prescribing and community referrals, which require accurate, up-to-date information about local provision. ORUK could provide a mechanism for NHS systems to integrate local authority and voluntary sector services into referral workflows. Procurement frameworks such as the Health Systems Support Framework (HSSF) already reference compatibility with Open Referral style directories.
Department for Education
Programmes such as Family Hubs and the SEND Local Offer depend on structured information about local services. ORUK could support a “publish once, reuse many times” model, enabling councils to expose service data through standardised feeds that can be reused by national platforms or referral services, reducing duplication and manual data entry.
Ofsted
Ofsted has indicated an intention to make more inspection data available through APIs. Alignment with ORUK data structures could make it easier to combine regulatory information, such as inspection outcomes, with local service directories and public-facing search tools.
Department for Work and Pensions
The Department for Work and Pensions requires up-to-date information about employment support and work-readiness programmes delivered locally. ORUK could offer a consistent approach to publishing and reusing services data from systems such as PRAP or the District Provision Tool (an internal DWP system used by Jobcentre Plus staff to view and manage local employment support provision and provision mapping), supporting coordination between national employment programmes and local support networks.
DCMS and Arm’s-Length Bodies (e.g. Sport England)
High-quality data about sport, wellbeing and community activity already exists using standards such as OpenActive. ORUK can complement these initiatives by providing a broader services data model, allowing activity data to be transformed and combined with other local service information to support integrated directories and referral pathways.
Why Open Referral for Place-Based Services?
Open Referral UK can help promote a place-based approach to public services by providing a shared, standardised description of the support available within a locality, regardless of which organisation delivers it. By structuring information about community activities, voluntary sector provision, local authority services and national programmes in a consistent format, ORUK enables different partners within a place — including councils, health bodies, charities and central government — to contribute to and consume a common “services layer”.
Rather than each organisation maintaining its own isolated directory, ORUK supports a federated model where services are published once and reused across multiple platforms, referral tools and digital journeys.
This creates the foundation for a ‘Place API’; a reusable digital interface that exposes up-to-date information about local provision to websites, social prescribing systems, case management tools, chatbots or data analytics platforms. Over time, this shared services API can become a core component of place-based digital infrastructure, helping partners coordinate support around residents, reduce duplication, and enable new innovation such as intelligent search, automated referrals or integrated prevention pathways.
In this way, ORUK moves beyond being a directory standard and becomes a building block for digital place architecture — enabling a consistent, interoperable view of “what support exists here” across organisational boundaries.
Open Referral UK and the Devolved Nations
Open Referral UK has relevance across the devolved nations of the UK, although existing approaches and levels of adoption vary.
In Scotland, Alliance Scotland’s ALISS platform already exposes an API broadly aligned with Open Referral concepts, demonstrating a similar ambition to share community service information across health, local government and the voluntary sector.
In Wales, engagement through the Digital and Data Standards Board has highlighted both interest in interoperability and practical barriers such as dashboard compliance issues and the need for Welsh-language resources. Earlier initiatives such as Dewis illustrate a more centralised model for maintaining service information, contrasting with ORUK’s federated “publish once, reuse many times” approach based on open APIs.
Taken together, these examples show that ORUK is not confined to England but sits within a wider UK landscape of service-directory initiatives, offering a potential common framework that could support interoperability while respecting devolved delivery models.
Why Open Referral UK for Residents?
For residents, Open Referral UK helps make it easier to find and access support available in their local area. By enabling organisations to publish accurate, structured information about services once and reuse it across multiple websites, apps and referral systems, ORUK reduces the need for residents to search across fragmented directories or rely on outdated information.
A shared standard supports clearer, more consistent descriptions of services, helping residents understand what support exists, who it is for, and how to access it. This can improve access to preventative and community-based support, such as social prescribing activities, advice services or local wellbeing groups; as well as statutory services provided by councils or health partners.
Over time, ORUK can enable more personalised and accessible digital experiences, including better search, assisted referrals and inclusive digital journeys, helping residents navigate complex local support systems with greater confidence and less repetition.
Why Open Referral UK for Front-Line Practitioners?
For front-line practitioners, including social workers, housing officers, link workers, health professionals and community support staff, Open Referral UK helps simplify how services are discovered, understood and shared with residents. By providing a consistent, structured source of information about local provision, ORUK reduces reliance on personal knowledge, outdated spreadsheets or duplicated local directories.
A shared services data standard supports more confident signposting and referrals, enabling practitioners to quickly identify appropriate support, understand eligibility or access routes, and keep pace with changes in local provision. This can improve collaboration across organisational boundaries, helping teams work more effectively within place-based partnerships such as Integrated Care Systems or local prevention initiatives.
Over time, ORUK can enable better-integrated tools within case management and referral systems, reducing administrative burden and allowing practitioners to focus more on supporting people rather than maintaining lists of services.
Why Open Referral UK for Planning and Commissioning Services?
Open Referral UK can support more informed planning and commissioning of services by providing a clearer, shared view of what support already exists within a place. When services are described using a consistent standard, partners across local government, health and the voluntary sector can better understand gaps in provision, duplication of activity, and opportunities for collaboration.
Structured services data enables planners and analysts to map provision geographically, identify underserved communities, and align local investment with strategic priorities such as prevention, wellbeing or financial resilience. By bringing together information from multiple organisations into a common format, ORUK can help move planning conversations away from fragmented directories toward a more holistic understanding of local ecosystems.
Over time, this shared “services layer” can support evidence-based commissioning, improved partnership working and more adaptive, place-based service design — helping organisations respond to changing needs with greater confidence.
Why Now for Open Referral UK?
Public expectations of digital services are changing rapidly. Residents increasingly expect to be able to search for local support as easily as they search for travel, retail or entertainment, with clear, up-to-date information available across multiple channels.
At the same time, practitioners and organisations are under pressure to do more with fewer resources, making duplication of service directories and manual data maintenance increasingly unsustainable. Open Referral UK offers a timely opportunity to establish a shared foundation for describing local services once and reusing that information across the public sector.
The emergence of artificial intelligence and intelligent digital assistants also creates a strong case for structured, standardised service data. AI-driven search, triage and conversational tools benefit from consistent, machine-readable information to provide accurate answers and safe signposting. Without common standards such as ORUK, AI systems risk relying on fragmented or outdated sources. By adopting ORUK, organisations can help ensure that future digital tools, including chatbots, case-support assistants and analytics platforms, draw on authoritative, place-based service information.
More broadly, the growth of place-based partnerships, integrated care systems and cross-sector prevention initiatives means that no single organisation holds the full picture of local support. ORUK provides a practical mechanism to connect these ecosystems, enabling a shared digital infrastructure for services data at a time when collaboration, interoperability and data reuse are becoming central expectations across the UK public sector.
SAVVI and Open Referral UK — A Powerful Combination of Standards
Open Referral UK focuses on describing what services exist, providing a shared, structured way to publish information about local provision across councils, health partners, community organisations and national programmes.
SAVVI, by contrast, focuses on understanding need, vulnerability and outcomes, enabling organisations to identify where support may be required and to coordinate activity around people and households.
When used together, the two standards create a powerful bridge between insight and action. SAVVI can help partners understand patterns of financial hardship, wellbeing risk or emerging need across a place, while ORUK provides the consistent services layer that allows practitioners, digital tools and residents to discover and access relevant support.
Together they support prevention-focused, integrated working across local government, health and the voluntary sector, enabling more coordinated referrals, clearer service pathways and a shared understanding of “what support exists” alongside “where support is needed”.
Current Levels of Adoption
Publishers of ORUK data
The ORUK dashboard currently lists six local authorities with live data feeds — Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Hull, North Lincolnshire, Shropshire and Southampton.
In addition to local authorities, the ORUK dashboard shows three further live feeds published by other sectors:
- a national regulator – Care Quality Commission
- a voluntary sector directory – Community Action Network Dorset
- a sector platform transforming activity data into ORUK format – Open Sessions/London Sport
Compliant Products
Current supplier adoption of Open Referral UK remains focused on a small number of platforms that have implemented live publishing capability. Based on the ORUK dashboard and documented deployments, at least four suppliers currently provide technology capable of publishing service information via an ORUK API, including Placecube’s Open Place Directory, Echo implementations, Porism data transformations and supplier-hosted feeds supporting Hull Council.
On the consumption side, a small but growing ecosystem of service-finder applications is emerging. At least four service-finder type solutions are currently known to consume ORUK data, including the LGA open-source service finder, Doc&Tee’s implementation for Bristol, a practitioner-facing service finder developed in Dorset, and LocalGov Drupal modules that can ingest ORUK feeds into council websites.
This pattern reflects an early-stage but functional market, where supplier capability exists even though widespread council adoption is still developing.
Stewardship and Promotion via iStandUK
The Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has looked after the ORUK standard within their Local Digital programme.
MHCLG, has now asked iStandUK to take on the stewardship and promotion of the standard, from April 2026; recognising iStandUK’s role in public sector data standards.
The Local Digital programme has set an ambition to see adoption by 30% of English Unitary Local Authorities over the next four years, recognising that as a tipping point by which remaining Local Authorities will want to achieve the proven benefits.
Phased Approach to iStandUK Stewardship
To manage transition risk, and ensure continuity of the Open Referral UK (ORUK) standard and supporting tools, iStandUK will adopt a phased approach with three operating modes: Minimal, Standstill, and Incubation. Each phase represents a clear step change in capability, resourcing and ambition.
Phase 1 — Minimal (“Keep the lights on”)
| From | April 2026 |
| Dependencies | Knowledge Transfer from MHCLG completed. |
| Delivery |
This phase is a continuity safeguard, providing a level of service that can be delivered using existing resources, and skills within iStandUK. The priority is to prevent service disruption, and secure ORUK assets.
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| Outcome | ORUK remains available and stable while iStandUK prepares to assume operational responsibility. Potential adopters are aware that support and promotion of ORUK is continuing. |
Phase 2 — Standstill (“Operate and maintain the current service”)
| From | June 2026. |
| Dependencies | Assurance of the MHCLG MoU to iStandUK for 2026/27, and beyond. |
| Delivery |
This phase establishes a stable, repeatable operating model for iStandUK stewardship, focused on maintaining the current standard, site and tools with appropriate assurance and service management.
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| Outcome | ORUK becomes an owned and sustainable “business as usual” service under iStandUK. |
Phase 3 — Incubation (“Improve, grow and mainstream adoption”)
| From | Earliest October 2026. |
| Dependencies | Dependencies: Additional resources from an enhanced iStandUK Operating Model in place. |
| Delivery |
This phase moves beyond maintenance into active development and ecosystem growth, focusing on adoption support, supplier enablement, and strategic improvements to the standard and its usability.
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| Outcome | ORUK evolves from a maintained standard into a scalable, place-based public sector capability with growing adoption and market support. |
Driving Adoption
MHCLG Pilots for ORUK
The Local Digital programme of MHCLG is arranging to provide funding to Greater Manchester Combined Authority to implement ORUK across the 10 Unitary Councils. Similarly, funding is also being provided to implement SAVVI within the Prevention Demonstrator.
This pilot is intended to test a scalable “place-based adoption model” combining ORUK services data with SAVVI insights.
The intention is to create a dedicated team at GMCA, supported by iStandUK.
Timings, funding, deliverables, etc are unclear at the moment.
This pilot represents a fantastic opportunity to
- develop a repeatable implementation process
- understand drivers and blockers
- measure impact
… towards establishing a credible business case and implementation support package, for other councils to follow.