Open Systems Lab

Digital planning support services

Open Systems Lab provide a range of services to help planning authorities discover, design, create, test and operate modern digital services that meet user needs and organisational goals.

As the team behind Plan✕, our services are primarily focused around Plan✕, but we can also support you through the whole process.

Features

• Help understanding your needs and developing a digital strategy
• Help understanding data requirements, such as GIS layers
• Training on how to use the Plan✕ editor
• Researching and designing new services on Plan✕
• Writing or maintaining custom flows on Plan✕
• Developing new integrations with Plan✕
• Customisation of analytics and feedback
• Developing new Plan✕ features
• Training on designing and writing good services using Plan✕
• Guidance on developing effective, user-friendly planning guidance and policy

Benefits

• Develop an effective digital improvement strategy
• Build digital services that address both your needs and users
• Build good digital services quickly, without software developers
• Familiarise your team with Plan✕, build internal skills and capability
• Improve the quality and consistency of your services
• Understand how users are using your services
• Foster confidence and ownership of digital transformation process
• Deep understanding of both planning and digital ways of working

£350 to £1,000 a unit a day

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at helen@opensystemslab.io. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

425933221809644

Contact

Helen Lawrence
07745112756
helen@opensystemslab.io

Planning

• Planning service: Yes
• How the planning service works: We can work with you to understand your priorities for improving your planning services, including current pain points for users and officers. From this, we can help you identify key opportunities, and which digital services you want to launch and run, and design a digital strategy that includes your data, the right stack of software tools, and how to build team capacity, grow internal support and develop new ways of working within your organisation.
• Planning service works with specific services: No

Training

• Training service provided: Yes
• How the training service works: We provide Plan✕ editor training. This involves training workshops for planning and policy officers. The first workshop focuses on general use of the Plan✕ editor. The second trains officers in how to research and write good planning services, for example ensuring that user-facing copy is well-written, clear and easy to navigate. We can also develop custom workshops to help your team become experts in creating and maintaining good services on Plan✕.
• Training is tied to specific services: Yes
• Services the training service works with: Plan✕

Setup and migration

• Setup or migration service available: Yes
• How the setup or migration service works: We can work with you to map your local policies and guidance (such as Article 4 conditions, validation checklists, policies and design codes, and write Plan✕ flows).; ; We can also co-write services with you, mapping out user needs, user journeys, researching key service information then building the flows in Plan✕.; ; We may also be able to help create custom features, or integrations between Plan✕ and other useful software.
• Setup or migration service is for specific cloud services: Yes
• List of supported services: Plan✕

Quality assurance and performance testing

• Quality assurance and performance testing service: Yes
• How the quality assurance and performance testing works: We can provide guidance on testing your Plan✕ services before they go live (with users and/or officers). We can also help check and review flows for the quality of their design and content (for example, ensuring that they are well written, in plain English, accessible, and meet the best practice standards for digital services).

Security testing

• Security services: No

Ongoing support

• Ongoing support service: Yes
• Types of service supported: Hosting or software provided by your organisation
• How the support service works: We can provide automatic updates of shared content, as well as updates and continuous improvement of your services in Plan✕.

Service scope

• Service constraints: If you would like us to provide on-site support services at your offices, an additional reasonable cost of travel may apply.; ; The PlanX services you can provide may be limited by the availability of data, or ability to integrate with existing systems. For many services, you will need to publish your GIS data layers on planning.data.gov.uk. If you wish to build services for which a fee is payable, you will need to create a GOV.UK Pay account.

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Email or Slack support for admins only, reply within 24 hours. Urgent issues will usually be responded-to more quickly.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: No
• Web chat support: No
• Support levels: Customer admins can contact us by email or via a community Slack channel to ask questions or report or resolve issues. Within working hours (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, excluding bank holidays) we aim to respond to: Critical issues within 2 working hours and put an at least temporary fix within 24 hours. Major issues within 8 working hours, and we aim to put in place an at least temporary fix within 5 working days. Minor issues we aim to respond within 16 working hours, if a reply is appropriate. Additional support services such as training, co-writing and planning information and data auditing are available for an additional cost (see pricing). We may from time to time also provide these for free to the community, including support drop-ins.

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• Government security clearance: None

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  The built environment is directly responsible for 25% of the UK's carbon emissions; 42% if you also consider its influence on people's travel choices. This puts the planning system at the front line of the climate challenge. For example, almost all of England's 25 million homes will need to be upgraded. However, today the planning process is too difficult to navigate, and such a large volume of applications would overwhelm planning authorities. This makes technology like Plan✕ vitally important because only by making planning simpler, planning rules easier to understand, and applications easier to process will we be able to meet the challenge.

  Tackling economic inequality

  The complexity and opacity of the planning system is a significant – and often prohibitive – barrier to homeowners and small businesses. Making planning simpler helps address this. It will also improve the productivity of not just businesses, but also council teams, for example by reducing failure demand, reducing repetitive demand, and allowing them to focus more resources on planning.

  Wellbeing

  The large majority of users of the planning system are homeowners seeking to make improvements to their home, including adapting homes to meet their spatial needs over time, including for their health, disability needs, improving the energy performance of homes and daylight. However, today, the complexity and opacity of the planning system is a barrier to doing this. Making planning simpler will reduce this barrier.

Pricing

• Price: £350 to £1,000 a unit a day
• Discount for educational organisations: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at helen@opensystemslab.io. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.