Councils receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in funding to support digital transformation schemes aimed at improving local services.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is giving £560,000 to 34 English councils in order to help them develop digital solutions to a number of issues, including support for troubled families, health and social care integration and welfare reform.

The money will support digital solutions already being developed by the 34 councils and the LGA hopes other local authorities will then be able to benefit from the results.

One of the funded projects, developed in Hounslow, is a tool to identify the top 20 adults with complex social care needs and chaotic lives. There is also a project in Wigan to develop a single view of a child’s record across multiple agencies.

Cllr David Simmonds, chairman of the LGA’s Improvement and Innovation Board, said:

“This programme seeks to build on this good work by enabling a group of councils to use digital tools and approaches to support their wider work to transform local public services.

Local government has made huge progress in enabling residents to carry out transactions online. Councils now need to build on this good work and fully utilise digital technology to help deliver more efficient services to manage rising demand and expectations from their residents.”