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Local Government Watch Example Searches

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Local Government Watch

Try https://www.localgovwatch.org to search local government PDFs.

Note the search is in demo mode and currently restricted to High Peak Borough Council in Derbyshire.

Purpose of Local Government Watch

Local government produce thousands of pdf documents every day. These are harder to search than conventional web pages.

The local government watch website provides a prototype method of searching these PDFs using a natural language interface, which allows you to ask open format questions to find information scattered amongst the PDFs.

Example Searches

Note that LLMs are inherently stochastic, so if you repeat the following searches using https://www.localgovwatch.org then you may get slightly different answers.

Also the answers may change as the underlying PDF database or web search results change over time.

The answers are biased towards the duties and services provided by High Peak Borough Council.

What are the duties of High Peak Borough Council?

High Peak Borough Council is responsible for providing district-level services within its area. Its main duties include:

  • Billing and collecting council tax, including precepts for other authorities such as Derbyshire County Council, Police, Fire, and local parishes.
  • Providing local services such as housing, waste collection, planning (except in areas covered by the Peak District National Park Authority), licensing, and environmental health.
  • Supporting and working with voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations in the borough.
  • Representing unparished areas (such as Buxton and Glossop) in functions that would otherwise be managed by parish councils.
  • Appointing councillors to serve on external bodies, such as the Peak District National Park Authority.

County-level services (like education and social care) are provided by Derbyshire County Council, not High Peak Borough Council.

A slightly more specific question might get a more succinct answer:-

What services is High Peak Council responsible for?

High Peak Borough Council is responsible for services such as rubbish and recycling collection, council tax, housing, planning applications, building regulations, street cleaning, and leisure centres.

Therefore if you ask about schools you might not get much information:-

Which schools are run by high peak council?

High Peak Borough Council does not run any schools. Education and schools in the High Peak area are the responsibility of Derbyshire County Council, not the borough council. High Peak Borough Council provides district-level services such as planning, housing, waste collection, and local amenities, but not education.

Example of more specific questions are:-

Who is the leader of High Peak council? How long have they been the leader?

The leader of High Peak Borough Council is Councillor Anthony McKeown. He has been the leader since 15 May 2019.

What is the contact number for High Peak Council?

The contact number for High Peak Borough Council is 0345 129 7777 or 01298 28400.

These answers agree with the High Peak Council website.

More general questions generally result in longer answers.

What is happening in the town of Glossop?

Glossop is experiencing several developments and activities led by High Peak Borough Council:

  • MyActive Glossop leisure centre is temporarily closed for essential survey work and to consider potential improvements to its health and fitness facilities. During the closure, members can use other High Peak centres.
  • The council is reviewing investment opportunities in the leisure centre to maintain high standards and improve services.
  • There is ongoing progress on the renovation of Glossop market hall and the historic Town Hall complex, with new images of the work recently released.
  • The council has also submitted ambitious proposals for significant investment in leisure, cultural, and community facilities in Glossop, including a bid to the Levelling Up Fund. Overall, Glossop is seeing investment in leisure, community, and cultural facilities, as well as temporary changes to leisure centre access due to improvement works.

Is high peak council doing anything about ash dieback?

Yes, High Peak Borough Council is actively managing ash dieback. The council has an action plan in place to address the risks and liabilities associated with ash dieback, especially for the estimated 5,000 semi-mature and mature ash trees it owns. The council carries out surveys, monitors the condition of ash trees, and undertakes necessary tree works such as pruning or felling when trees become hazardous. They also encourage the public to report suspected cases of ash dieback on council land and provide advice on what to do if the disease is found on private land. The council is allocating resources to manage the impact and is planning for the increased costs associated with tree works and replanting.

Some questions give a factually correct answer, but slightly miss the point:-

Where is the Buxton magic roundabout? And why is it magic?

The Buxton "magic roundabout" is located on the A6 to the north of Buxton, adjacent to Fairfield Common and North Road. It is a 4-arm roundabout constructed to improve traffic flow and access in that area. It was built to manage the intersection of several key roads, improve safety, and accommodate increased traffic volumes, particularly as Buxton is a hub for several strategic and distributor roads. The term "magic roundabout" is often used for roundabouts with multiple entry and exit points, sometimes with mini-roundabouts within a larger one, designed to handle complex traffic movements more efficiently than traditional roundabouts. In Buxton's case, the roundabout is called "magic" due to its design, which allows for smoother traffic flow and better management of multiple road connections.

The roundabout in question allegedly cost £3M pounds and has 4 arms, but 2 arms provide access to fields, that have yet to be developed into housing estates, prompting local bemusement and at best a very expensive 180 degree turning round opportunity. More reason for being aware of what your local government is spending your council tax contributions on!

More Technical Background

Local Government Watch relies on Retrieval Augmented Generation to perform semantic matching with a database of pdf text fragments. This is a relatively new approach compared to traditional keyword matching.

See our local government watch project page for a more technical description of how our RAG system works.

Other Applications of Large Language Models

There are many applications of LLMs besides RAG/search for example:-

  1. Customer Support/Chatbots
  2. Content Creation
  3. Language Translation
  4. Data Analysis and Insights
  5. Accessibility
  6. Multi-modal LLMs e.g. vision and audio applications.

If you would like to use LLMs or general AI in your application please contact us for a free no obligation discussion.