Organisational Intelligence Service
Our world is increasingly driven by data and analytics to enable us to make evidenced based decisions, demonstrate value for money and to deliver exceptional services to our communities. Which is why we create the Organisational Intelligence Service (OIS) supporting strategic HR delivery.
There are five main ways we do this using:
Local Government Workforce Capacity Metrics Survey
Local Government Benchmarking
Market Benchmarking
Mini Surveys
OIS Network
Local Government Workforce Capacity Metrics Survey
Open to all councils.
The National Association of Regional Employers (NARE), working with MHCLG and the LGA, created a core set of metrics to help councils understand workforce capacity across the country. Every council in England can access this survey and the associated reporting, and SEE provides it at no cost to our councils.
How it works
If your council is an OIS member, you only need to complete the HCM Survey. Your responses will automatically feed into LGWCMS, so you enter the data once.
If you are not an OIS member, you can complete the LGWCMS directly. SEE will give you access and support.
Why take part
A single, consistent view of workforce capacity across councils
Evidence to inform planning, service design, and recruitment
Comparable metrics you can use in reports and discussions with leadership
The survey covers:
LGWCMS is a focused subset of the Human Capital Metrics (HCM) Survey within the Local Government Benchmarking Club. It collects consistent data on:
- Workforce profile, age, gender, ethnicity, disability
- Length of service
- Sickness absence levels
- Agency and temporary staff usage
- Leavers and vacancy levels
- Management structure, number of managers in the top three tiers
Local Government Benchmarking
For OIS Subscribers only.
We have partnered with London Councils to offer a solution that lets South East councils benchmark themselves against each other and with organisations across regions, including London.
Shaped by HR leaders
Over 20 years, these surveys have been developed with Heads of HR across all London boroughs and, more recently, with Regional Employers’ Organisations like SEE nationwide. The result is a set of surveys that reflect real issues HR teams face. The HR Resources Survey has also been re-imagined to stay relevant to more councils during this period of transformation.
Use of the tool is via the InfiniStats website at www.infinistats.com. With user-friendly ways to upload your data, InfiniStats provides outstanding reporting capabilities, inlcuidng heatmaps, user defined dashboards and council branded annotatable reports ready to email to your Corporate Leadership Team and Councillors. Not only is this an opportunity to become part of the only Local Government specific benchmarking system, it also offers your organisation a data solution to store and interrogate your own data whenever you need.
Currently powered by:
Access and analyse your data using InfiniStats:
- Easy data upload
- Risk reporting, including heatmaps
- Council-branded, annotatable reports ready to share with your Corporate Leadership Team and Councillors
- A secure place to store and interrogate your own data whenever you need
This is a sector-specific benchmarking system designed for local government, backed by tools that make your data useful the moment you log in.
Want to get started or see a demo? Contact the SEE team and we will set you up.
The Surveys...
- Agency CSW Pay
- Chief Officer Pay and Benefits
- DfE CSW Workforce Annual Census Data
- Gender Pay Gap
- HR Outputs
- HR Resources
- HR Resources (up to 2024)
- Human Capital Metrics
- Local Government Workforce Capacity
- Pay and Benefits (Social Workers)
- Pay and Benefits (exc. Social Workers)
- Terms and Conditions
- Trade Union Membership
"...shared knowledge; more efficient resource usage; evidence-base for interventions..."
Support for Children's and Adults Social Care
For County and Unitary councils, Infinistats provides a separate pay and benefits survey for the social worker workforce and quarterly surveys on agency pay rates for both children's and adults social workers, to support regional work on memorandums of co-operation to reduce escalating agency spend.
In addition, Infinistats draws the DfE's Children's Social Worker Census data into the platform for easy reporting. Your Children's Services Director will love the reports this can produce.
Benefits for you
- InfiniStats helps you to sort your workforce data in a meaningful way to run reports about your own organisation
- Gives you all the data for evidence-based strategic decision making
- Reports and benchmarking against other councils for comparator purposes
- One-click report generator
- Once-click scorecard creation
- Saves time and money with its incredible reporting system
- Potential to benchmark against councils in other regions, including London
- Reports generated in your councils’ own branding – including logo and corporate colours
- Historical data can be uploaded directly into InfiniStats, so you're not starting from scratch
- Gender Pay Gap data is pulled from gov.uk into InfiniStats for youWide range of job families covering key areas of the sectors workforce e.g. Building Control, Planning, Cyber Security, Refuse, HR and Legal.
- Specifically designed to meet the needs of local authorities
- Established and robust system used by all councils across London for the past 8/9 years
- The more you put in the more benefits you will gain!
OIS Hub
Click here for InfiniStats video walkthroughs and survey schedule.
What will it involve for me?
When you join, we'll send you copies of the surveys so you can prepare your current data, and historic data if you wish. The hardest part, is identifying which of your council's roles match the pay survey levels, but we have some helpful tools to support you with this.
Surveys are opened once a year on a schedule designed to spread the workload. Some of the data you will already report on, e.g. sickness absence levels, demographic profile of your workforce, so you can use this data for Infinistats uploads too.
No survey is mandatory but...
If you do not respond to a particular survey you are unable to report on it; only participatory councils have the ability to see others’ data which gives a greater degree of confidence in the quality of the data. The more you put in the more you get out!
Market Benchmarking
We recognise, in today’s recruitment and retention market, that councils are no longer just competing with each other. To help our councils understand their position in the market we offer access to Market pay data.
Whether you're on OIS subscriber or not, we can support your needs for market comparison. OIS subscribers have access to a small number of pay benchmarking reports as part of their subscription, whereas all pay benchmarking activity for non-subscribers is conducted as consultancy.
If you need benchmarking data simply submit a request via ois@seemp.co.uk and the team be in touch to discuss your specific data needs. If you are looking to restructure a large team or need a large number of jobs benchmarked we can support you through our consultancy service, and as OIS subscribers you don’t pay a data access fee.
We also have access to HR Metrics market data such as sickness absence, turnover and HR resources. OIS subscribers can view the Local Government information directly through Infinistats. However, we are able to provide a wider market context to sit along side that data.
OIS Network
For Infinistats Superusers and designated end users. This virtual network meets every other month to discuss key issues and look at future data needs. The network acts as a sounding board for development options for our OIS service and specifically InfiniStats.
Mini Surveys
Open to all SEE members and OIS subscribers.
SEE’s long running mini survey service remains available to all our members and is now available to our OIS subscribers too. Our monthly mini survey is circulated to a mailing list of HR professionals in councils across our region, who are given two weeks to respond.
The deadline for submitting questions is the 3rd of each month (or the Monday after it the date falls on a weekend). The survey is sent out around a week after.
Results are collated and shared with the requesting authority and those who responded to the survey within a week of the closing date. We can include questions on any topic not collected in InfiniStats for our members.
Extra for OIS subscribers:
If there is insufficient information in the system (while InfiniStats is in its growth phase) we will include such data requests within our mini surveys. Data provided by OIS subscribers will be added into InfiniStats and all responses will be circulated to OIS subscribers.
Frequently asked questions
What are the key benefits to joining OIS?
- Know and understand your position within the sector and the wider market.
- Leverage the data from your in-house HR systems to produce robust sector and market tested evidence for your decision making.
- Access to sector specific benchmarking data from councils across the country when you need it.
- Pay and benefits market benchmarking for up to twelve roles per year included.
- Collaborate with colleagues across the country to identify solutions and leverage economies of scale.
How and where do I start uploading my data?
Your nominated users will receive an email as soon as your council is set up on Infinistats. As soon as you have access to InfiniStats you can start uploading data to the surveys that are open. We’ll send you a copy of the spreadsheets and survey templates to help you get started but these are also available in Infinistats.
If a survey is closed or you would like historic data added, email the information to us and we’ll arrange for it to be added.
How do the surveys work?
There are two types of survey – the online form and the Excel spreadsheet. The online form version, such as the Human Capital Metrics Survey, simply requires the user to input the data into the form on the platform. The Excel spreadsheet works really well for bulk uploads of data such as pay and terms and conditions.
No matter which type of survey you are completing, you don’t need to upload all your data in one go. You can upload a portion of the information, save it and come back to it at any time during the ‘open’ window. You can also have more than one person completing each survey.
How much time will I need to spend inputting my data?
You can spend as much or a little time as you want uploading your data. We know the pay surveys can be daunting to start with, but you can work in batches – year 1 work on 10 or so job families that you are most interested in, year 2 add another 10.
The template spreadsheets or online surveys within InfiniStats are designed to make the system as simple as possible. Any surveys that you complete will allow you to access that data. Remember, the more you put in the more you get out.
What if the data I need isn't available in InfiniStats?
If there is insufficient information in the system don’t fret, simply get in touch with us via email at OIS@seemp.co.uk, with the data you need and we can assist you. We can include Infinistats metrics data requests (from OIS subscribers) within our mini surveys. We also have access to market pay data which enables benchmarking across all sectors.
Is it just South East data on InfiniStats?
No, other regions are onboarding all the time. Regions currently using the system are South East, South West, London, East of England, West Midlands, with North East, North West, East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humber coming onboard. There is a national conversation, supported by the LGA and the MHCLG, about the future of data collection within the sector and looking at how Infinistats could be the solution.
How do we access market data?
Simply submit a request via ois@seemp.co.uk and the team be in touch to discuss your specific data needs.
If you are looking to restructure a large team or need a large number of jobs benchmarked we can support you through our consultancy service, and as OIS subscribers you don’t pay a data access fee.
How do I request a mini survey?
We run a monthly mini survey containing questions raised by our councils. To have your question included, email us at ois@seemp.co.uk by the 3rd of the month.
How much does the OIS cost?
The service is available, via SEE, to all councils in the south-east region and is determined by the type of council. However, SEE subsidises the subscription costs for SEE member councils. Please get in touch to discuss subscribing to OIS. Included in the cost is tailoring the system with your logo and branding, and all the support and development you would need from SEE and the developers to ensure the system keeps meeting your needs.
Step 1
Get in touch to arrange a demo and price. Please use the form below.
Step 2
Make a great decision for your council and sign up to OIS. Sign and return the SLA and provide a PO number.
Step 3
Send us a high resolution logo and your corporate colours so we can ensure your one-click reports are branded and ready to go.
Step 4
Nominate your super users who will be adding your additional users giving you full control.
Step 5
Provide your data for upload on InfiniStats where it will be validated and stored with other responses, or you can amend your data directly if that is preferable for you.
Get In Touch
Any Questions? Let's Chat!
If you want to get in touch about our Organisational Intelligence Service, just drop us a message using the form, and a member of our team will be in touch.