Socitm Blog

Last week, Jos Creese and I were hosted by MISA-Ontario at their Annual Conference in Niagara . Jos was representing Socitm at the Conference, which was also providing the venue for the annual international meeting of the LOLA (Linked Organisation for Local Authority ICT Societies) - our partner associations.

For my part, there were a number of reasons to attend:

To identify ICT policy drivers, priorities and initiatives in the countries represented by the partner associations.

To initiate a critical comparison of these policies and initiatives.

..... and all this would be designed to challenge and support the development of Socitm's local public services perspective on the UK government's emerging ICT strategy.

Now for some reflections on the conference. It was fascinating to see how Canada has transformed public services, not the least reason being that the new Coalition Government regularly cites Canada as a shining example. Several things struck both Jos and myself:

• There is greater local autonomy in public services than is the case in the UK.
• The level of regulation and national performance measures used to control and audit local delivery is much lower.
• With the exception of the major cities, they have a two tier system very similar to the traditional UK model; we found that this causes few, if any, problems for the CIOs at the different levels.
• They have the same challenges as the UK in making IT worker harder to deliver transformation and openness; in some areas they are ahead (e.g. shared services) and in some areas we are ahead (e.g. open government).

So, what of the lead up to the conference, and the conference itself?

C          Call 311

A          LOLA

N          Niagara

A          trAnsparency

D          Doing IT differently

A          MISA - Ontario

Call 311 - " Toronto at your service" - non-emergency contact centre

Straight from the airport, I joined the international delegates in Downtown Toronto, to be hosted by Stephen Wong at the Toronto 311 Centre. His was a fascinating story of a City Regional Authority formed by amalgamation of the former Region and 5 lower tier municipalities, 50,000 staff (36,000 City and 14,000 Boards, Agencies, Commissions) with a Cdn$9bn p.a. operating budget. The 311 project, championed by the Mayor, started in 2004 comprises a contact centre and the Toronto 311 website with staff of anything up to 120 at busy times.

Upon my return to the UK, this case study has been of interest to The Cabinet Office for the opportunities presented by the concept of the single non-emergency number, in particular for rationalisation of contact centres and telephone numbers and the resulting efficiency savings.

LOLA - Linked Organisation of Local Authority ICT Societies

Immediately after our 311 visit, the international delegates met to discuss the opportunities for collaboration. I facilitated a discussion about our proposal for a project to identify and compare the ICT priorities and experiences in each of our countries. The project received unanimous support. We agreed a timetable for its execution and completion in 2010. Other topics included a refresh of the LOLA website, use of collaboration tools, participation in an EU-funded conference in Belgium in December 2010, international webinars, reducing carbon emissions from desktop infrastructure, and a proposed project on shared services.

Later in the MISA Conference, the international delegates presented selected aspects of ICT activity in their respective countries. Readers may be interested in sunshinereview.org, which assesses the transparency of US States, Counties and School Boards against a range of criteria. Jos gave an update on the work of SOCITM and UK government priorities for IT. He also had a chance to talk with the mayor of Niagara about political developments in Ontario and the way public services are working with the private sector now.

Among awards given to organizations, the winner of MISA-Ontario's first-ever International Excellence in Municipal Systems Award was the national municipal IT organization of New Zealand, ALGIM, for its Information Management Toolkit.

Niagara

The Conference location was a spectacular one set in a hotel adjacent to the famous Falls. The Hotel itself provided an excellent venue, facilitated by a team from the host municipality of Niagara. An interesting departure from our UK experience was that breakfast was served in the main conference room which was laid out cafe style with the exhibition stands at either side. This provided a great opportunity for networking.

Transparency - Open Government and Web 2.0

Transparency was a major theme running through the conference. David Eaves - "citizen, blogger and activist" - delivered a challenging keynote, citing experience in the City of Vancouver, amongst many other examples. This was followed by a panel debate in which Jos gave a short presentation on open government, which was particularly well-received.

Doing IT differently

Keynotes on cloud computing and measuring the value of IT provided some interesting perspectives on areas that lie at the heart of Socitm's priority policy areas. The latter was particularly pertinent given the work underway with Socitm Insight/Benchmarking to develop some useful guidelines for measuring the value contributed by IT to local public services.

MISA - Municipal Information Systems Association, Ontario

MISA Ontario has a history that predates Socitm, having been formed in 1971. I attended a session where their new Corporate Strategy was presented. There were striking parallels with Socitm, as well as some potential ideas on the commercial side that might transfer to the UK and elsewhere watch this space! Of particular note is the number of software agreements that have been negotiated with suppliers (and the lack of EU constraints!).

Overall this was an excellent conference with plenty of opportunities for exchange of ideas. Out thanks go to our Canadian hosts who were unstinting in their attention to our programme and to our well-being. Our congratulations go to our lead host Harry Turnbull, who won two awards during the course of the conference.

Direct experience of what is really happening in Canada will lend credibility to Socitm in responding to those voices in the UK who have not visited, but are quoting Canada as an example of best practice. Indeed, some of the experiences of cities such as Edmonton, Regina and Vancouver in dealing with significant budget shortfalls are particularly relevant.