iStandUK has declared backing for the use of the Open Referral UK (ORUK) open data standard for community services.
The organisation, which focuses on the promotion of data standards in local services, has highlighted the importance of ORUK as a sister standard of its own, pointing out that is has recently been endorsed by the UK Government Standards Authority and that the Open Data Institute (ODI) has committed to hosting a data institution for ORUK.
iStand has adopted ORUK for the ‘support’ phase of Scalable Approach to Vulnerability Via Interoperability (SAVVI) process.
A blogpost on the issue said: “Local authorities are required to publish directories of family information services and typically they maintain multiple other directories of overlapping content and varying quality.
"Other public sector bodies provide and signpost a smaller range of services. Private, community and voluntary sector organisations, such as Age UK, describe their own services and often feature in many directories.
“ORUK is a standard that better enables the sharing of open information on services by public sector and community organisations across the UK. It does so by making service information open and shareable in a common format so it can be re-used and progressively improved by the collective efforts of publishers and consumers.”
Sharing data
The ODI announced its commitment to hosting an ORUK data institution in March. Within the announcement, Mike Thacker, director of Porism, a software company that works with the Local Government Association, local authorities and the ODI, commented: “Early adopters have shown the power of the Open Referral UK standard for sharing data and avoiding tie-in to proprietary systems.
“I now expect the institution to take the standard to another level, mainstreaming it amongst public organisations and commercial suppliers.”
iStand has also promoted the importance of the Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB) social prescribing standard. This is a UK wide standard enabling the sharing and recording of information for all models of social prescribing including those used in local authorities and voluntary organisations in social care or health.
