Broadcasts

Weekly Broadcast Thursday 27 October 2011

FREE webinar on top tasks with Gerry McGovern Managing council top tasks:

Saving customers' time Wednesday, 2 November 2011 11:00am - 12:30pm

Socitm Insight's 'top tasks' event on 15 September was one of the highest-rated  that we have ever run, and many of you were disappointed not to be able to access sessions virtually.

Now you can hear more, from your own desk, from one of the outstanding contributors to the September event.

This session will start by reviewing why Socitm Insight and its Better connected review team believe that the concept of top tasks should now be driving the design of council websites. It will then introduce three improvement methods associated with 'top tasks' and the goal of saving customers time (and the council money) that are available in a joint offer from Socitm and Customer Carewords:

 

Customer Centric Index identifies the most important element of your website you need to fix

Top Tasks Identification process clearly identifies your customers top tasks and their tiny tasks

Task Performance Indicator measures how well these top tasks are   performing.

Places at the webinar are limited. Reserve your seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/253368386

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Socitm response to open data consultations

The Government's open data proposals could inhibit the potential to improve public service delivery and benefit the public.

Socitm's responses to Making Open Data Real: A Public Consultation and Data policy for a Public Data Corporation, highlight a series of issues likely to inhibit the potential of open data to improve public service delivery and benefit the public.

Socitm says the proposals over-emphasise the benefits of open data to armchair auditors and developers, overlooking real benefits for the management of public services, especially if open data comes within within a broader approach to information management and evidence-based decision-making. It also makes the point that local authorities continue to struggle with the business case for publishing open data.

With regard to the governance of open data set out in Data policy for a Public Data Corporation, Socitm believes that the 'given' of a Public Data Corporation managing the availability of 'charged for' public data is at odds with the proposals contained Making Open Data Real and appears to be at variance with the Government's aspirations for 'Big Society', 'Localism', the 'Right to Data' and other statements on empowerment of people to take control of their own lives.

Weekly Broadcast Thursday 13 October 2011

Ten questions for the CIO

99.9% service availability and projects on time and budget no longer enough says new briefing from Socitm Insight.

99.9% service availability and projects delivered on time and budget are just basic expectations of today's CIO, says the new briefing from Socitm Insight.

The business needs more from ICT, and chief executives should be demanding it. This briefing sets out ten top questions chief executives should be asking their CIOs to ensure that ICT is delivering what the business needs by:

• helping reduce the resources needed to meet increasing demand for information and services.
• unlocking the value the organisation's information

While CIOs cannot do this alone, they can lead front-line and support service colleagues to reshape service delivery by exploiting the technology opportunity. There are still relatively few Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in the local public sector, but Heads of ICT who aspire to a broader role should create their own opportunities for leading change.

Ten questions every chief executive should ask their CIO poses critical questions like How can ICT reduce our operating costs and add value? setting answers in the context of public services and emphasising that detailed answers will be different for each organisation.

The briefing is available to Socitm Insight subscribers (login required)

Weekly Broadcast Thursday 6 October 2011

Measure customer access and channel shift

Socitm Insight to run pilot benchmarking exercise this autumn supported by the Local Government Contact Council.

Socitm Insight will be running a pilot exercise this Autumn to explore the possibilities of running a low cost customer contact benchmarking service.

The aim is to collect data around volumes and shares of customer contacts across different services received by councils through the main access channels (phone, web, face to face, email etc) to enable participants to compare performance and experience with other, similar councils.

Respondents will be able to benchmark their current channel and top service ratios and identify the potential for channel shift and consequent cost savings.

The data collection and sharing activity will be supplemented by a workshop for participating councils to discuss results and share strategy and best practice in channel management and achieving channel shift.

The survey will collect data for the period 1 October to 31 December 2011 and the data collection deadline will be 31 January 2011.

Full results and findings from the pilot will be shared with participation councils, with headlines shared more widely.

If you are interested in taking part in the pilot exercise, which will be FREE OF CHARGE to all local authorities, please email insight@socitm.net

PSN Telecommunications Survey

Update and reminder

The survey was sent out by Cabinet Office in early September.  Information received already from a variety of public sector service providers is proving to be invaluable in shaping the approach to delivery of PSN and maximising the opportunity to realise benefits across non-central government public services. 

If your organisation has yet to respond, please could you do so as soon as possible.  This information is needed so that a robust roadmap for public sector transition to the PSN can be established, and to ensure that the PSN team are able to provide assistance to you in an informed and timely manner.

If you do not have all the information readily available please return the information you have at the earliest opportunity. We will continue to work with you to obtain the rest in due course.

Brian Tayler
Local CIO Council Representative, Public Services Network, Cabinet Office
brian.tayler@kent.gov.uk
07920 428598