Socitm Blog

Jos Creese (Chair) welcomed everyone to the meeting and outlined the background to the re-launch of the Local Public Services CIO Council, which has been formed from a merger of the old Local CIO Council and the 'Futures' group from Socitm.The new Council remains independent from Socitm, but works with Socitm on research, sharing best practices and appointments to the Council

Membership of the LCIOC covers all local public service sectors as well as geographies.Appointment is made through Socitm, and Socitm also provides the necessary administrative and professional support, but the LCIOC is independent.

The new Terms of Reference were agreed.Key principles are openness, transparency and delivery against the 'Planting the Flag' strategy.

The LCIOC supports and provides constructive challenge to the National CIO Council - policy and strategy.Three members are on the National CIO Council (JCr, DR and JCa).

Publicity and press coverage will be provided through UKIT Authority and Helen Olsen attended the meeting to work with Socitm on the initial press release. http://www.ukauthority.com/

It was felt that the LCIOC has become highly influential, and a driving force behind promoting the role of IT in public sector reform.This needs to be exploited.

The importance of the web presence for the LCIOC work programme, membership and activity was stressed, and more work will need to be undertaken on this.

There has been some challenge in getting a continuity of support from the Health sector, and this will be reviewed.

The appointment of Dylan Roberts to the National CIO Council was agreed and is supported by Andy Nelson.Glyn Evans will be stepping down from the Local Government Delivery Council and National CIO Council, but will remain a special adviser to the LCIOC.

Greater support and representation of district council membership was agreed a priority and RW will look at this.

Further support outside the LCIOC for implementation of the strategy and in support of CIO Council members was agreed and will be pursued separately by stream leads, though the Socitm network.

Links to other bodies was agreed a high priority and the priority areas were identified with key links agreed.

The 'Planting the Flag' strategy and workstream were reviewed with a particular focus on production of the series of pocket guides:

• Leadership - progress now complete, advocacy and integration with the IT professional worksteam/governance will be important.
• The Governance guide was launched at the end of June.
• Organisation guide will follow, and LCIOC stream members were asked to comment on this.
• The Sourcing workstream was reviewed, and more feedback is encouraged on examples.
• Good progress was made on the Shared Services workstream, and GC will work with SMc to consider ways of publishing best practice examples with the Local Government.
• There was a discussion around Shared Infrastructure - PSN and data centres - an update will be given at the next Council, led by an external speaker.
• DR gave an update on the PSN programme and the priorities around connecting to Health, IL2/IL3 traffic integration, employee authentication and guides on GCSx Code of Connection, etc.
• RM gave an update on Professionalism, where good progress is being made and links to the National Accreditation Schemes developed.This will be reviewed at the next Council meeting.
• Agile - a pocket guide series should be produced.This was agreed, building on the case studies which had emerged from the pilot with Socitm Insight.

The format and publishing of the guides was discussed and it was agreed that short synopsis that can be re-used would be helpful, especially for those in the Socitm regions.

There was a discussion around the NHS Information Strategy.This was welcomed despite concerns over a lack of substance on implementation and relatively little local government referencing.MF will be drafting a response.

The Socitm annual conference was discussed, with the various streams and master classes.Everyone to feed back.

'Citadel on the Move' project was discussed.

The consultation on Open Standards submission was reviewed.RM was thanked for his work on this.

Any Other Business:

• Terms of Reference, group representation, etc to be re-circulated.
• Andy Nelson has been invited and will attend the next two meetings.
• Information Assurance and Security Update will be given at the next meeting.
• Andrew Waterston to be invited to speak on Data Centre Consolidation.
• The recently announced SAP/Microsoft pan-government agreement was noted.
• Pete McDougall will attend the next meeting to discuss the wider public sector WiFi access programme.
• MF to ensure that every Council members is involved in one or more workstreams that this is formalised.
• The LGA report on Local Government Funding was welcomed, and Socitm will be considering a supportive response to this work.
• The Chair to produce summary de-brief note which can be used at Socitm regional meetings to solicit feedback and involvement beyond Council members.

Jos Creese, Chair

Dylan Roberts, Vice Chair

Martin Ferguson, Programme Manager

Melanie Duncan, Logistics and Support