Children's Services' Data Tool

This repository holds a set of tools and utilities for processing and cleaning Children's Services' data.

Most of the utilities are centred around three core datasets:

• SSDA903
• CIN Census
• Annex A

CIN Census

The CIN Census file is provided as one or more XML files. The core tools allow you to validate both an entire CIN Census file, or validate individual Child elements and flag or discard those that do not conform with the CIN Census schema.

In addition, the tool can detect and conform non-ISO8601 dates to the correct format and reject incorrect values from enumerations.

liiatools

This document is designed as a user guide for installing and configuring the liiatools PyPI package released to London DataStore for the processing of Children’s Services datasets deposited by London Local Authorities

Introduction to LIIA project

The LIIA (London Innovation and Improvement Alliance) project brings together Children’s Services data from all the Local Authorities (LAs) in London with the aim of providing analytical insights that are uniquely possible using pan-London datasets.

Please see LIIA Child Level Data Project for more information about the project, its aims and partners.

Purpose of liiatools package

The package is designed to process data deposited onto the London DataStore by each of the 33 London LAs such that it can be used in for analysis purposes. The processing carries out the following tasks:

• validates the deposited data against a specification
• removes information that does not conform to the specification
• degrades sensitive information to reduce the sensitivity of the data that is shared
• exports the processed data in an analysis-friendly format for:
  • the LA to analyse at a single-LA level
  • additional partners to analyse at a pan-London level

The package is designed to enable processing of data from several datasets routinely created by all LAs as part of their statutory duties. In v0.1 the datasets that can be processed are:

• Annex A
• CIN (Future Release)
• 903 (Future Release)

The package is designed to process data that is deposited by LAs into a folder directory to be created on the London DataStore for this purpose.Page Break

Installing liiatools

Liiatools can be installed using the following:

Pip install liiatools

Or using poetry:

poetry add liiatools 

Configuring liiatools

All of the functions in liiatools are accessed through CLI commands. Refer to the help function for more info

python -m liiatools --help