Can an open source revenues and benefits system work in local government?

We are a collaborative partnership, funded by DLUHC, and we’ve been testing how we can implement and migrate to an open system for managing business rates, assessing how usable it is for staff, and figuring out the best way to govern an open source community to maintain and develop the software.

The partnership is led by Teignbridge Council, and includes Sedgemoor, East Devon, Leeds, Basildon and Brentwood councils. We’re now at the end of this Alpha project – we’ve learnt a lot and made some really great progress. You’ll find our Executive summary at Doc no.1 and quite a few of our working documents posted. Currently we are considering next steps. Watch our final Show & Tell here

Latest news from the project: (all posts can be found by going to BLOG at the top of this page)

  • Doc no.4 Governance

    Open Source Licence It was important to check out how an open source licence should work, consider the options – limitations and benefits, look at what others have done, and think about the best practical approach for this project

    Keeping reading…


  • Doc no.6 User Research

    User Research It was important to build on the learnings we had from our original Discovery project, when wetalked to many different authorities’ staff, by again interviewing people closely connected to the world ofbusiness rates, including key local authority staff, and business customers.

    Keeping reading…


  • Doc no.5 Governance

    Memorandum of Understanding Memorandum of Understanding: We needed to set out how the five councils could/should work collaboratively, and with consultants Made Tech, on this Alpha project – taking into account values, liabilities, reporting, etc. Common courtesy, integrity and a common sense approach were at the heart of the commitment.

    Keeping reading…


  • Doc no. 3 Governance

    Governance Summary Our colleagues at Made Tech came up with an easy to understand set of principles around open source governance, including recommended team structures, and how costs and funding could be managed for an open source platform.

    Keeping reading…


  • Document library no.1

    Executive summary At the end of the project this was our internal summary of how the project had gone

    Keeping reading…


  • Library no.2 Governance

    Governance This is how we started thinking about how Open Source governance could work.

    Keeping reading…


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