The London Development Agency (LDA) is acceptance-testing business intelligence software intended to improve internal budgeting processes.

The Mayor’s agency, responsible for steering London’s sustainable economic growth strategy, is hoping the application server technology will allow it to repackage key statistics on its performance, according to specific requests and requirements.

LDA head of information systems and knowledge management Linda Chandler says that improving the organisation’s budgeting and reporting capabilities is fundamental to proving that it is meeting its public remit.

‘In terms of our pivotal position as part of the nine regional development agencies and reporting to the London Mayor, there are a lot of outputs we have to produce on our performance across the board,’ she said.

The agency has become one of the first UK users of Microsoft’s latest release of SQL Server 2005. The LDA is making particular use of its business intelligence developer features that enable the configuration of different data sources into a ready-made reporting interface.

‘The use of SQL Server 2005 is important to be able to see key information and data in one place,’ said Chandler. ‘It will give us a greater understanding of particular stakeholders.’

In the past, static, high-level reports displayed on spreadsheets were the agency’s only reporting capabilities.

The LDA is using the technology as part of a data warehousing and business intelligence project run under public sector best-practice methodology Prince2.

‘This work will enable us to see a top-down view of our performance, by integrating easily with existing systems and data sources,’ said Chandler.

‘Achieving one point of view on performance is critical to fulfilling our remit.’