Broadcasts

Weekly Broadcast   Thursday 24 February 2011

Make sure you can access Better connected 2011 on March 1

Better connected 2011 will be published at 8am on March 1. As well as the usual results and analysis of our survey of all local authority websites, this year's Better connected will include commentary on the mobile web, results of a survey of social media, material on the quality of library services, and a whole lot more.

You will only be able to download the report if your council has renewed its Socitm Insight subscription and you are personally registered on the Socitm website www.socitm.net.

You can check the former by going to the list of up-to-date Socitm Insight subscribers. To register as a user on the Socitm website so that you personally can download publications as an employee of a subscribing organisation, go to https://www.socitm.net/register.

If your council is not subscribing to Socitm Insight, there's a good business case for them to do so - the savings on the cost of buying Better connected, together with our recent Better served report, cover almost the entire cost of the lowest band subscription, with further potential savings of several thousand pounds from other Insight services.

Weekly Broadcast  Thursday 17 February 2011

New report from Socitm Insight highlights major savings opportunity

The latest report from Socitm Insight, published on February 15, says councils should bring all front office customer contact, whether face-to-face, by phone, through the web or other means, under the same governance and management.

Doing so will help achieve significant savings available from reduction in avoidable contact, process improvement, and channel shift to the web.

Better served: customer access, efficiency and channel shift is a 96pp report and can be downloaded from Socitm.net/insight free of charge by Socitm Insight subscribers. It costs £295 for others (£275 Socitm members) and can be ordered from Socitm.net/insight

A launch workshop for the report will be held on 15 March in London, details are available in the events section.

Accredited designations - still time to say yes

Socitm's new membership structure was launched in early January when all members received a personal letter with full details of options available for taking up an accredited designation with post nominal letters. The letters enclosed a pro forma for replies and a request for responses by 28 February 2011. This was to ensure that new membership cards for 2011 contained the correct information.  

However, the end of February is not a final cut off point and it is still possible for members to take up an accredited designation without payment of a higher fee in 2011. The guidance leaflet can be downloaded from the Membership section of the Socitm website.  So if you haven't yet confirmed acceptance, please email enquiries@socitm.net

Weekly Broadcast  Thursday 10 February 2011

Socitm response to PASC Inquiry: Good Governance: the effective use of IT

Socitm has responded to the Public Accounts Select Committee inquiry into the way in which Government develops IT policy and the strategy for its implementation. It addresses the Government's overall approach to information technology including how it identifies business needs, the effectiveness of governance arrangements, and procurement policy and practice. See our response at: Socitm.net

European (EU) Evaluation of the Public Procurement Directives - Socitm's Response and Supporting Notes

Socitm has responded to the EU evaulation of the Public Procurement Directives (Cabinet Office's Procurement Policy Note 21/10 - Feedback Request of the 6th December 2010). The response has been prepared in partnership with the ICT Procurement Workstream of the South East 7 County and Unitary Councils (being Kent County Council, Medway Council, Surrey County Council, East Sussex County Council, Brighton & Hove Council, West Sussex County Council and Hampshire County Council) SE7, who prepared the Supporting Notes, co-ordinated by East Sussex County Council.

David Membrey joins Socitm main board

David is deputy chief executive of the Charity Finance Directors Group and is the second person to join the board from the civil society sector since Socitm merged with the Charity IT Resource Alliance (CITRA) in 2009. Among his board colleagues is former Salvation Army IT director David Clayden, who has been a Director of Socitm since the merger. David Membrey is already a member of the Socitm events and the Socitm third sector steering groups and his appointment to the main board will further strengthen Socitm's engagement with IT and digital professionals in voluntary, charity and civil society organisations.

Read more about David at: Socitm.net

Free network security checks

Do you think your organisation's networks are as secure as they need to be?

Through our colleagues at Encription, we can offer you two opportunities to find out for certain just how secure your networks really are.

1.  Provide us with six e-mail addresses of key staff and we will identify any weaknesses or potential security issues.
   Or
2. Allow us to visit your website and run a series of security checks

In either case we will provide you with a free report outlining the results, which will include any issues and potential risks that you need to be aware of.

Weekly Broadcast  Thursday 3 February 2011

Sustainability & Green ICT - get involved!

Socitm is involved in a number of activities around carbon reduction and sustainability and would like you to join in. These can be accessed through the GovX space Sustainability & Green ICT

• The Government ICT Strategy: Smarter, Cheaper, Greener is being updated.  Through the Cabinet Office Green Development Unit (GDU) we can influence the content of this strategy before it goes to the CIO Council for approval.
• The UK HMG Green ICT Workbook is going to the CIO Council for approval. This workbook is intended to be a tool for any organisation and supports the strategy.  It is likely to be subject to annual review, so again we can influence what is included.
• Some SOCITM green KPIs have been trialled, but we need more practitioner input to their development.

Better connected 2011 out on March 1 - are you registered and ready to access it?

As in previous years, Better connected will be published on 1 March. Results will go up on the Socitm website at 08.00 hours. Any registered www.socitm.net user from a Socitm Insight subscribing local authority that is up-to-date with its subscription will be able to download the report and associated spreadsheets as soon as it is published. To check if your authority is paid up, please check the Paid Socitm Insight subscribers list.