International Volunteer Day: making a difference in our communities
Every year, International Volunteer Day highlights the important role volunteering plays in strength...
Mapping the housing safety and quality system
The System Design team at the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) includes ...
Testing new planning data specifications with industry: 5 pilot partnerships paving the way
Faster and more efficient planning relies on open, accessible and trustworthy planning data. But dat...
The Local Deprivation Explorer: Making deprivation data easier to find, understand and use
The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) rank over 33,000 small areas across the country by levels ...
Introducing the Mayoral Data Council: making data work for devolution
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is working with England's Mayoral ...
Supporting councils with a Cyber Incident Response service
MHCLG is making a new Cyber Incident Response (CIR) service available to English councils, helping t...
Diving into planning decisions: What we learned from our latest user research
Across England, local planning authorities use different formats to record the outcomes of planning ...
PropTech innovation takes on housing delivery challenges
How do we embark on the journey of solving 3 fundamental problems holding back housing delivery in E...
Designing a user-centred intranet to help our staff work more effectively
At MHCLG, colleagues across the UK use the intranet daily for news, resources and guidance, such as ...
Digital planning transformation gains momentum
Open Digital Planning is becoming a powerful force for change in local government. This supportive c...
Building understanding of software markets in local government
Over the past six months, we’ve been developing our understanding of local government software marke...
How user research is shaping the future of EPCs
Energy performance certificates (EPCs) help people understand how energy efficient their buildings a...
Delivering a data standard to support Awaab’s Law in social housing
We’re pleased to share a milestone in our social housing data work, the delivery of a new data stand...
Understanding Elections user journeys: lessons from in-person mobile testing
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, user research in government has largely shifted online. This transition...
Understanding Elections user journeys: lessons from in-person mobile testing
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, user research in government has largely shifted online. This transition...
Standardising the planning application process: Kicking off work on decisions
Every year thousands of planning decisions are made which shape the future of where we all live, wor...
Introducing UCD Ops at MHCLG: Bringing ResearchOps and DesignOps together
User-centred design (UCD) at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is gr...
Digital Planning: From pilots to scale – how PropTech partnerships are unlocking its potential
The launch of the Opportunity for PropTech Report, earlier this year, at Google’s Headquarters in Lo...
Rapid Policy Insights: How user-centred approaches support improved policy design in MHCLG
Embedding digital into policy In MHCLG, a central element of our digital strategy is ‘embedding dig...
Standardising the planning application process: Progress and next steps
Since October 2024, our team has been hard at work standardising the planning application process. T...
Common Tools: building a performance dashboard that meets user needs
The Common Tools as a Service (CTaaS) team is responsible for building standardised, reliable and re...
Unlocking innovation in planning: Reflections on the PropTech Innovation Challenge
How do we bridge the gap between our ambitious housing targets and the complex realities of planning...
Creating a reusable Svelte component library to help developers build data-rich digital products faster
In recent weeks, our product development team has been building a Svelte component library to provid...
Extract: Using AI to unlock historic planning data
Extract identifying Ground Control Points to georeference the old map This isn’t going to be a stor...
Supporting local government to reduce cyber risk through targeted interventions
The cyber threat to local government is real, increasing, and constantly evolving. Attacks can disru...
Putting innovation at the heart of unlocking small sites
In a significant move to accelerate housing delivery across England, the Deputy Prime Minister has t...
Unlocking planning innovation: 150 brilliant minds collaborate in Leeds
Innovation came to life at the recent Local Government Innovation Hackathon, in Leeds. This high-en...
Advancing digital planning: Open Digital Planning’s first end-to-end product pilots
Last year was a significant step forward in our mission to modernise England’s planning system. Supp...
Funding Service: Transforming an Excel spreadsheet into a user-friendly form
The Funding Service helps grant teams deliver funding quickly and consistently to local councils and...
Funding Service: behind the scenes as a grant relationship manager
Just 2 years ago, the MHCLG Funding Service was celebrating onboarding our second grant ever. Fast f...