Portal gives Kent residents insight into public services and public servants

Open Kent offers information on council amenities and spending

Kent County Council has launched a pilot web portal, called Open Kent, that will provide the local community with access to public sector information from their area.

The service provides a portal for local people to search data published by any organisation that is part of Kent Connects, a technology partnership of public-sector bodies in the county.

The service will give users information such as which primary school is their nearest, how much district councillors are claiming on expenses and information on local traffic problems.

The service was built using the IBM Lotus Mashup Center web application platform, and IBM is also technical partner for the project.

"We can upload data to the web site, and members of the public can view that data. It gives us a certain amount of functionality from the back-end to create imagery and graphics as well, so in that respect the Mashup Center solution satisfied our requirements," said Matthew Kerr, project officer at Open Kent.

The pilot, which also fits in with the national government's transparency agenda, will be evaluated in October 2011.