We are excited to announce a new chapter for Open Referral UK (ORUK) as it officially comes under the stewardship of iStandUK this April. This marks the culmination of a smooth and collaborative transition that began in November 2025, when ORUK started moving to iStandUK (Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council).
Over the past few months, both teams have worked closely to ensure continuity and strengthen ORUK’s mission: enabling better data sharing and interoperability across local services. iStandUK brings deep expertise in standards development and governance, making them an ideal home for ORUK as it continues to grow and evolve.
This transition is more than a change in stewardship - it’s an opportunity to accelerate innovation and collaboration across the sector. Under iStandUK’s leadership, ORUK will continue to champion open standards that help communities, service providers and technology partners work together more effectively.
We would like to thank colleagues at MHCLG and members of the team at TPXimpact working across the Local Digital Programme for their incredible support and leadership in guiding ORUK to this point.
MHCLG has now transferred stewardship of the key OpenReferralUK GitHub repositories, including the validator, the UK directory of feeds and the UK website, to iStandUK. This transfer ensures continuity for the standard and its supporting tools. iStandUK intends to further develop these software components and the related services so they continue to meet both UK and international needs and we welcome contributions from the global OpenReferral community as this work progresses.
Stay tuned for updates as we move forward with new initiatives, partnerships and resources to support the ORUK community. Together, we’re building a more connected and responsive ecosystem for local services. You can sign up to the mailing list here.
