The primary objective of the study was to explore the potential costs and benefits to local authorities and/or local partnerships of implementing Local Information Systems (LIS), and thus to provide a framework for local authorities to come to a reasoned decision as to if, when and how to develop their own LIS. This has been raised as an issue about which those developing LIS would value greater clarity. For an average system with annual running costs of GBP 63,000 per annum the break-even point for the number of unique repeat users is between 300 and 442 users per annum. The minimum number of users of a LIS in this study was 900. The authors estimate, after taking into account running costs, that this LIS is creating net benefit of more than GBP 100,000 per year. The maximum number of users of a system in this study is 4,300. The net benefit created by this LIS is more than GBP 500,000 per annum. An online value assessment tool, which utilises the range of values calculated in this study, has been developed to enable LIS managers to calculate the value of their systems. The tool can be found at www.esd.org.uk/LIS-value-assessment
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Research suggests that for an average system; with annual running costs of GBP 63,000 per annum, the break-even point for the number of unique repeat users is between 300 and 442 users per annum. The minimum number of users at a LIS in this study was 900. The authors estimate, after taking into account running costs, that this LIS is creating ‘net benefit’ of GBP 100,000 or more per year. The maximum number of users at a system in this study is 4,300. The net benefit created by this LIS is more than GBP 500,000 per year.
Users who knew of an alternative source thought it would take them 19.7 minutes longer to find the information they required from alternative sources. This group probably offer the best insight into the time saved by using LIS, since if they know of an alternative source, they should have a good idea of how long it would take to obtain the information. By utilising HM Treasury Green Book methodologies, it was possible to calculate a monetary value of GBP 142 for the time saving (of 10.5 hours per year) provided by LIS for each visitor. This conservative figure was used to calculate the lowest point on a range of values to estimate the annual monetary value for each unique user of a LIS.
Average users (who use LIS for longer per annum than users who knew of alternative sources) would achieve a time saving of 14.0 hours a year; this would equate to a monetary value of GBP 210 per unique LIS visitor per year. This figure was used as the upper end of the range of values to estimate the annual monetary value of LIS. The study provides eight recommendations.
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