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Spring 2025 IAG User Group

 

Overview

On Thursday 27th March we held the Sprint 2025 IAG User Group, which was attended by 20 colleagues working across PPL and the various Local Authorities with a PPL Information, Advice and Guidance website. There was great representation from 11 of PPL's clients across the UK.

The User Group highlighted the power of collaboration and building a community in which challenges and best practice can be shared.

 

Key highlights

Lou Fagan from Hampshire County Council shared their new-look Connect to Support Hampshire website which maintains all the amazing content to help citizens live well and independently from their previous site but with streamlined navigation, a suggested search and a modern, clean design.

Vicky Newton from Leeds City Council shared the new interactive pathways on the Leeds Directory, which are currently being launched. Key topics include Carers, Falls Prevention and Armed Services.

In City of York's absence, James Lees from PPL gave an overview of the fantastic work they have been doing on their Mental Health module - the team at Live Well York have created a mental health questionnaire and interactive pathway to help guide York residents to useful information and resources relating to mental health.

 

Roundtable

The meeting gave attendees opportunity to share their experience with their Information, Advice and Guidance websites:

  • Bradford Council - Bradford FYI is the digital home for the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. To support this, the team continue to use PPL's interactive pathway functionality to help users navigate the content in an engaging way. The site consistently see increases in views and receives fantastic feedback from practitioners. 
  • Camden Council – The team have been working on an upgrade for Camden Care Choices and ASC Practice Guide which have both been successful, with good support from PPL.
  • Surrey County Council – A recent deployment to the site has launched Surrey Wide services and district and borough filters to help users locate services. Surrey are currently working on a pinned services update so that they can highlight commissioned services. 
  • Sheffield City Council – The site is currently undergoing a full redesign, with some new landmark images that have PPL have designed to bring Sheffield to life on the site. Sheffield have also been doing a lot of work on a self-assessment questionnaire triage tool, which has been built to link up to early help strategic outcomes.  Sheffield have received positive feedback from professionals and parents.
  • Kirklees Council – Kirklees are currently reviewing information about preparing for adulthood for users of the Local Offer. Kirklees plan to work with a group of young people, with complex needs to see how they can make support and information accessible and meaningful to them.
  • Tower Hamlets Council - Tower Hamlets have recently redesigned the home page and are undertaking feedback sessions throughout the year. Feedback on the content of the site is very positive.
  • Birmingham City Council – Birmingham are looking at bringing parent and child functionality to the community directory. In addition, they are working on the widget functionality to share content better with partners. There has been lots of positive feedback about the site following engagement events with local partners and the council to understand how people use the site.
  • Kent County Council – Kent are currently working with our sensory team at the council on the provision of British Sign language information including key pages and key videos. A key focus for the next quarter is around carers information. Kent are working with focus groups with local carers organisations and also people that are carers in in the Kent area to gather views on information that they need.
  • Lincolnshire County Council – The team are currently working on a site upgrade and redesign with PPL, reviewing all content before the migration process. A key focus for the next quarter, is developing their interactive equipment house and a version of the house that is for digital technology enabled care items.

 

Outcome

The meeting was a success, stimulating lots of collaboration and support between the local authorities. 

The next meeting will be scheduled for summer 2025.