Socitm Blog

• base level geographic data should be freely available for non-commercial use, removing current licensing restrictions and associated bureaucracy
• none of the options offered for consultation guarantee this outcome
• the full cost of the above should be met by Government and can be justified in the context of a 'whole place' approach to public service delivery
• potential cost savings from a 'whole place' approach could be undermined if appropriate business model not found for OS.

Similar arguments were made by the Local Government Association, the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI) and a number of local authorities in their responses.

Towards the end of the month, the Government responded with its proposals. A good summary and reaction can be found at http://knowwhereconsulting.co.uk/os-consultation-winners-losers-irony-and-a-bit-of-schadenfreude/. Comments received from practitioners suggest that:

• There will be (from next April) a "One Englandand Wales" agreement, mirroring the "One Scotland" agreement for the provision of mapping data to all levels of Government. A key question (awaiting an answer) is whether the costs will be charged on in some way (as Scotland) or top-sliced or what?
• The "derived data" issue has not been resolved. It was not highlighted in the original consultation, but was a key issue raised by many, particularly in local government. It is what has been preventing local government from releasing its data.
• The whole address situation has not been resolved, or possibly moved forward at all. Moving to the "One England and Wales" agreement from the MSA releases the tie between mapping data supply and the commitment to maintain and develop the Street and Land and Property Gazetteers. This needs to be sorted quickly.
• INSPIRE has moved toOS, reducing (to zero?) DEFRA's involvement. As a data management challenge, OS is probably the better place to put this, but there is real scope to go beyond the basics that INSPIRE mandates, to provide real data sharing/exchange possibilities. Whether OS as the lead will make this happen is another question.
• There are outstanding questions about independence/conflicts of interest on advice to central government which look as though they still need to be answered.

For those reading this blog, we would welcome your comments (using the< leave your response> facility below).

During March, I fed information into a number of Government bodies and publicly-funded projects. While I was in Wales, Adrian Hancock took my presentation on Tomorrow's Public Services to a highly productive CLG/Cabinet Office roundtable. Subsequently, issues addressed by the Prime Minister's speech on building Britain's Digital Future (22 March 2010) and on which Socitm has been pressing home the case include:

Driving efficiencies in public services by more intelligent deployment of ICT

Revitalising the focus on the socially and digitally excluded

Transforming the way that citizens access and have a say in the services they receive

Reinventing participation in decision-making and politics using the opportunities presented by small scale, interactive technologies

Greater transparency and access to information for re-use, including OS data

Shared service for citizen ID authentication.

In Socitm's response to the Prime Minister's speech on Britain's Digital Future, we called for a renewed focus on locally delivered information handling and technology deployment to underpin the proposals made in the speech. We argued that evidence from the Total Place pilots and elsewhere confirms that public services deliver more, better and for less when services are led, managed and resourced locally, with citizens and front-line staff having a major say in the nature and composition of those services. Our response drew a healthy interest with over 600 views on the website and extensive reporting in the press.

Meanwhile, I have started to participate in commentary and deliberation on the alternative Ideal Government IT Strategy. I have already made the point that many of the views expressed align with Socitm's position as expressed in our response to the PM's speech. However, the strong communitarian line developed in the strategy, at least in my view, needs to be balanced with a role for local government and local governance.

Martin Greenwood and I met with Theo Blackwell of the Digital Inclusion Unit, where we explored areas of mutual interest and the opportunities to support the work of Martha Lane-Fox with evidence drawn particularly from Insight's Better Connected Series and our Customer Access Improvement Service.

Soon afterwards, I met Amanda Derrick, Tim Spiers and Sarah Fogden of GES Connect Digitally - a business change programme whose goal is to lead local authorities in streamlining delivery and improving outcomes for families. Current scope of the programme spans online school admissions, and is moving on to free school meals, cashless catering and online payments. As the team pointed out, the programme provides a proven methodology for implementing multi-agency, joined-up, end to end, online systems.

The Cabinet Office provided the venue to meet with Glyn Evans (on a part-time secondment) to share thoughts on the establishment of a Digital Public Services Unit. I also met with Matt Briggs, Programme Manager for the DWP-based Tell us Once programme to discuss how Socitm might help with ensuring that full account is taken of local government needs and circumstances, and with communicating implementation. Not far from our minds were the many lessons to be drawn from Government Connect.

My involvement with external groups included: chairing a Siemens-sponsored roundtable entitled "Mindthegap: critical steps to next generation platforms for public services" with a panel of experts and friends from the press; contributing our thinking on Tomorrow's Public Services to a meeting of the Association of Directors of Social Services - Information Management Group, representing local public services interest into the Information Assurance (IA10) Event Management Board; and facilitating with colleagues from Newcastle University an excellent ESRC-sponsored workshop on information sharing and the third sector.This last event will provide material for a future Socitm policy briefing on the topic. An article for Public Servant provided an opportunity to introduce the framework behind our conception of Tomorrow's Public Services; more of that at our April 22 National Conference.

Socitm business during the month included: meeting with Mark Wheatley to explore how Socitm Learning could develop its programme to reflect the priority policy areas for the Society; discussing with Mary Wintershausen sources and content for proposed Learning courses on the Council of the Future; presenting to and meeting with members of the Socitm South Region, facilitating, with Roland Waterhouse, Martin Greenwood and Doug Maclean) a Local CIO Council workshop on developing a small set of 'strategic' Key Performance Indicators; and considering with Ellen Jessett the linkages between Socitm's priority policies and membership development. I was delighted to welcome Janet de Rochfort of Kent County Council who agreed to take on the role of Socitm lead on green IT, previously performed by Chris Head.

So ended a month which had seen our reach with Socitm policy extended into the devolved administrations. Next month will see the election front opened up and, interestingly, given current prospects for a hung parliament, the opportunity for the devolved areas to express their identities and differences.