The Local Government Inform (LG Inform) Value for Money (VfM) profiles is the sister tool of LG Inform, and brings together data about the costs, performance and activity of local councils and fire and rescue authorities.

The VfM profiles have been designed to help auditors and people who work for councils and fire and rescue authorities understand the costs of delivering local services, and to get an overview of comparative spend and performance over time and relative to others. However, they can be used by anyone who has an interest in local public services including service users and residents.

The data are displayed in a series of topic based reports that give an overview of the chosen organisation and the services it delivers. For example, in the adult social care section of the council profile there are further sections relating specifically to each of the five different client groups. In Children & Young People there are further sections including education services, schools, Sure Start & early years, looked after children, etc. The content of these detailed sections is designed to allow users to focus on discrete aspects of a service or area of financial management, bringing together measures that provide a focused, but balanced, view of spend and performance.

All reports relevant to the organisation selected are accessible from the reports menu at the top of the page and within each report you are able to drill down into individual metrics by clicking on the metric name. You can also export data at various points within the site.

The VfM profiles use data published by government department and other organisations, much of which are official statistics, and the source of each indicator is included in the detailed metric report.