The Local Government Service List is a collection of services that a public sector body in the UK provides to or on behalf of those who live, work and pass through their area. Not all councils perform all services in the list but it gives a common set of actions from which to choose.

The LGSL provides a standard way of referring to each service when communicating within and between organisations. It uses unique numeric identifiers for each service, irrespective of the language and naming conventions that are used by different people and organisations to identify or describe services.

To make the list easier to use we’ve listened to what you've been telling us and with the new services now offered by the Public Sector, those that are no longer carried out and a long awaited change to some service names, we have re-vamped the LGSL.

We've been consulting our editorial team of experts along the way and we really hope it’s much more user friendly.

It's now your opportunity to comment and we’d really like to hear from you.

Here’s the English version of an article written for Norwegian local government people.  It describes UK progress towards eGovernment putting particular emphasis on the role of standards and their role in achieving productivity gains by:

• Removing duplication within an organisation
• Rationalising service delivery across local public sector and community organisations (local government, health, fire and rescue, etc)
• Targeting services at vulnerable groups rather than the population in general

Here’s an open source demonstration application showing how to use esd-toolkit’s open standard lists with open government data to drive websites and portals with reduced maintenance.

The Open Data Demo (ODD) web page illustrates a variety of techniques applied by GOV.UK (see this blog), Directgov and some local authorities to configure websites by referencing the Local Government Service List (LGSL) and Navigation List (LGNL).

Gov.uk, the test site of the citizen-facing, new UK government website is now live. It is the first phase in Martha Lane Fox's plan to create a simpler, clearer and faster way to access online government information and services. Longer term, .gov.uk is intended to cover the digital estate currently filled by Directgov, Business Link and other gov.uk websites.

Stop press!!! Cabinet Office acknowledges the importance of using controlled lists (LGSL & LGIL) and the role they play in delivering accurate web services!!!

http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/02/14/local-services-and-gov-uk/

Gov.uk is different from Alpha (www.alpha.gov.uk) in that the Alpha was more about the concept and idea, and trying new, quicker and cheaper ways to develop. The Government Delivery Service team (http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/) (GDS), have taken the Alpha feedback and used it to drive improvements in .gov.uk.  

A lot of the editorial content and services on .gov.uk will continue to be delivered by departments and agencies who will publish to a shared platform.