ESD Metrics Types List

Last Updated:4th Fenruary 2014

What is it?

An open public list of consistently defined type of measure of demography,
performance and other kinds of statistic reported by the public sector.

Purpose

To consistently define measures that are used in analysing circumstances and performance.

Specifically the metric types list takes metrics published by local authorities and by many public sector organisations and puts them in a standard format such that they are:

  • Comparable
  • Easily re-usable
  • Machine readable

Where is it?

Hosted by esd-toolkit at this URI:

http://id.esd.org.uk/MetricTypeList/

Ownership and Licensing

Owned by the esd-toolkit programme, managed by the Local Government Association.  Freely available for re-use without charge.

Scope and Jurisdictions

Currently limited to metric types included (or under consideration for inclusion)within the esd-toolkit and LG Inform reporting tools.

Indented as the definitive source of definitions of metrics shared between local authorities and published by them as part of their commitment to transparency.

Through co-operation with other bodies, the metrics type list might be extended to cover a greater range of metric types used in the public sector or be one of a federated set of such lists, all taking the same format.

Management

Metric types are added and updated continually by the LGA Research & Information Team.

Technical support via the esd-toolkit programme email and Information Management, LGBM and lists online forum.

Support on metric type definitions via the LG Inform – Improving services through information online group.

What Standards does it make use of?

The list is defined as a SKOS list according to the W3C.  See http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/

The URIs follow the guidance at

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/designing-uri-sets-uk-public-sector

Formats returned are:

RDF, XML, CSV, RTF, PDF and HTML

Mappings to other Classification Systems

Links to other parts of the Local Government Business Model, some of which provide “dimensions” for metric values:

Take Up

Used by the LG Inform Service and esd-toolkit.