Broadcasts

February 2010

Weekly Broadcast Friday 26 February

How to deal with what's coming next.......

If you are wondering how to ride the tide of change that's coming to local public services you should take a day out and come along to Socitm's National Conference on 22 April. Top speakers and an excellent set of workshops. For further details download the National Conference literature.

Are you registered to download Better connected 2010 on Monday?

This year's annual report on the quality of council websites is available for download on Monday - providing you work for a paid up Socitm Insight subscriber and you've registered personally with the www.socitm.net. Go to the site to find out more.

Open data - where do you stand?

Socitm and the LGA announced support this week for the drive to free up official data, announced recently as part of the launch of the government website www.data.gov.uk . See our press release, Government's drive to open up official, non-personal, local data will create benefits and efficiencies say LGA and Socitm and the issue is also covered in Better connected 2010.

Weekly Broadcast Friday 19 February

1. Twitter Gritters: download your copy now
2. Booking for Socitm National Conference opens next week
3. Don't ignore this questionnaire
4. Access these useful items on new sustainability requirements

Twitter Gritters: download your copy now

This new briefing from Socitm Insight describes how councils used the web and social media to help manage the recent snow disruption. If you work for a Socitm Insight subscribing organisation, and have registered on the new Socitm website, you can download your free copy of Twitter Gritters

Booking for Socitm National Conference opens next week

We'll be sending out a special broadcast next week when bookings open for this year's Socitm National conference and AGM, being held at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole (at the NEC) on 22 April - so look out for that.

Don't ignore this questionnaire

A number of information managers in a sample of County, Unitary and Metropolitan local authorities will be getting a questionnaire soon from the National Archives Digital Continuity Project something Socitm is supporting. Contact malcolm.todd@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk with any queries.

Access these useful items on new sustainability requirements

Legal requirements to cut carbon emissions are being introduced in April, along with mandatory reporting requirements. Public Finance has published a useful article on these issues around sustainability which also mentions a report from Oracle called Public Sector Sustainability Reporting downloadable from the Public Sector Performance Management Forum.

Weekly Broadcast Friday 12 February

1. Socitm publishes briefing on the Government ICT Strategy
2. FREE seminar on information sharing in the delivery of welfare services
3. Third sector meeting and drinks
4. Great strides forward with Socitm web skills framework

Socitm publishes briefing on the Government ICT Strategy

Socitm has published a briefing on the Government's ICT Strategy launched a couple of weeks ago. In the briefing Socitm expresses disappointment at the Strategy's over-riding emphasis on reducing the cost of ICT. Socitm believes that a better focus for the Strategy would have been the much greater potential to cut government's costs through effective deployment of ICT in the delivery of public services. Socitm's Head of Policy Martin Ferguson, who wrote the briefing, comments: 'While reducing unnecessary ICT cost is critical in the current financial climate, too much focus on cutting ICT costs could prevent investment in technologies that would enable savings dwarfing anything that could be achieved from reducing ICT budgets. Copies of the briefing can be downloaded from http://www.socitm.net/downloads/download/267/a_socitm_policy_briefing_the_government_ict_strategy_smarter_cheaper_greener

FREE seminar on information sharing in the delivery of welfare services

Re-mixing the economy of welfare: what is emerging beyond the market and the state?

FREE seminar on information sharing in the delivery of welfare services
29th March, 2010, 09.30-16.00 at the University of Birmingham This ESRC-funded seminar is about information challenges facing third sector organisations (TSOs). Their increased role in public services has led to contentious information management and information security issues. It has also raised the importance of contract and performance management in TSOs, which often have a different ethos from public sector agencies.
The seminar will include contributions from Martyn Croft of the Salvation Army (and Socitm's third sector steering group), David Clayden, of CiTRA (Charity IT Resource Alliance) who is a member of the Socitm Board, and Martin Ferguson, Socitm's Head of Policy.

For more information and to book your place go to:
http://www.socialwelfareservicedelivery.org.uk/seminar_5.aspx

Third sector meeting and drinks

There will be a Socitm Third Sector members' meeting on 18 February, with the theme 'Getting the most from your Socitm Membership'. The meeting is free to attend and open to all who are interested in Third Sector IT issues and will be held at the Charity Finance Directors' Group (CFDG) offices, 1 London Bridge, London SE1 9BG, starting at 3.30pm. The Socitm Third Sector community comprises individuals who joined Socitm through last year's merger with the Charity IT Resource Alliance (CITRA), as well as other IT professionals from the third sector who have since joined. CITRA is rebranding to become Socitm Third Sector and the meeting on 18 February marks this new development. The merger with CITRA reflects the growing need for collaboration between the third sector, local and national government, and enables IT professionals from the third sector to take advantage of the Government's IT Profession agenda, in which Socitm is heavily engaged. Socitm will be hosting a drinks reception following the meeting. If you would like to attend email: citra@ctt.org.
more info: http://www.socitm.net/info/156/networks/83/third_sector_group

Great strides forward with Socitm web skills framework

Thursday 4 February saw the second of two planned workshops to support initial definition of a web skills framework for public sector webbies, in a project being led by Mary Wintershausen from Socitm Consulting. An enthusiastic bunch of web practitioners and managers, plus some individuals with backgrounds in professional development and accreditation, assembled for the workshop at the CLG offices in Victoria. Local government, central government departments, CoI and Directgov were all represented, and among the group was a good cross section of professional web skills, ranging from the technical, through editorial and publishing to the wider arena of internal and external communications. Huge progress was made, and we are on target to get the framework out for consultation in the next few weeks, with a view to launching it later this year. A fuller write up of the workshop and the whole initiative appears in the Socitm blog.

Weekly Broadcast Friday 5 February 2010

1. CIPFA Shared Services Report
2. Major Transformational Change using ICT Workshop
3. Accessible Courses and the In-House Option

CIPFA Shared Services Report

Socitm members may be interested in CIPFA's recently published Shared Services Report - Sharing the Gain/Collaborating for cost-effectiveness

The report addresses the need for public service leaders and managers to consider radical changes to their organisational structures and operating models in the present financial climate. One option they will need to explore is whether greater collaboration with other bodies offers a route to reducing costs while maintaining service quality. Of particular interest here will be the potential role of service sharing, both for front (customer-facing) and back-office services.

The guidance set out in the report has been written to help local public services understand and address these issues. It is the result of a partnership between CIPFA (the Chartered Institute of Pubic Finance and Accountancy) and the Society of District Council Treasurers (the SDCT).

While it has been produced with smaller public bodies in mind, the report should be of interest to all organisations that are keen to explore partnership working as a means of putting their services on a sustainable, long-term footing.

As might be expected, given CIPFA and the SDCT's professional interests, the guidance provides particular insights into issues around finance and accountancy, and how these might be managed in a collaborative environment. For the most part, though, it aims to cover, and be relevant to, the full range of services that organisations might wish to deliver through shared arrangements.

From a Socitm perspective, Socitm Futures will be considering the report's implications for information handling and ICT provision as part of our ongoing policy work with LGA, IDeA and others to envision and influence the shape of Tomorrow's (local) public services.

The report is available as a free download on the CIPFA website - http://www.cipfa.org.uk/sharingthegain/

Major Transformational Change using ICT Workshop

If your organisation is achieving major transformational change using ICT then Socitm and the Local Government CIO Council wish to invite you to participate in an important workshop to help develop a number of strategic KPIs to measure ICT -enabled transformation. The workshop is in London on the 22nd March.

The Socitm KPIs, now in their eleventh year, are the definitive standard for measuring ICT performance in the public sector. However a number of organisations have identified the need to move beyond the scope of measuring the ICT service into more strategic areas.

All public sector organisations must now seriously consider, if they have not already done so, the radical re-design of their services, if they are to meet expenditure reductions and yet still improve service delivery, investing in ICT to do so.

Almost always this change, though dependent upon ICT, involves many others outside the ICT service.

Recognising the impact of these transformational changes, the Local Government CIO Council, believes that it is now timely to develop a number of strategic KPIs that will capture such change, the investments involved, the benefits being achieved and the governance arrangements in operation. It has invited Socitm to help develop these more strategic KPIs.

The development of such KPIs will facilitate inter organisational comparisons and, more importantly, help to support and encourage others to also identify the potential transformational benefits of ICT. Accordingly, the Local CIO Council has agreed to support a workshop which will identify the KPIs required and the range of measures, guidance etc to underpin them.

The invitation to join this workshop is limited to those organisations that are already achieving transformational change and so are likely to have something to offer in the development of the KPIs.

Accordingly you are invited to send a representative to the workshop which will be held between 10.30am-4pm on the 22nd March in London.

A more extensive report on the development of the KPIs, considered previously by the Local CIO Council, will be sent to participants as an initial discussion document.

Please notify roland.waterhouse@socitmconsulting.co.uk of your intention to attend this important workshop.

Accessible Courses and the In-House Option

Socitm Learning has seen an increase in interest in in-house courses and workshops tailored to the needs of individual organisations. All our regular courses can be run in-house and we can also develop new ones. As our facilitators are also working consultants they can bring considerable insight, flexibility and added value. The effectiveness of on-site events can also be enhanced by follow-up support and advice.

Of course some organisations or teams are too small to justify an in-house event, but where several people require training then it may be possible to fit in an extra public course to suit whereby people from other organisations make up the numbers or even use the opportunity to trial a new topic.

Contact enquiries@socitmlearning.co.uk or call 0121 241 2773 for more details

Birmingham is less than 10 miles from the centre of England, which happens to be Meriden by all accounts, and it has excellent transport links. Our courses run in the city centre. This is very handy for the mainline railway stations, however, the airport is only 10 minutes away by rail and the motorway (A38M) goes right into the centre.

The following courses are running in Birmingham over the next few weeks :

Business Development and Account Management 23 February

Practical SLA Development Workshop 24 February

Business Continuity Fit for the Future 25 February

Developing an ICT Strategy 4 March

ICT Strategy for Social Housing Made Simple 25 March

Of course London is pretty accessible as well. Forthcoming courses include :

Developing a Strategy for EDRM 2 March

Developing a Strategy for Mobile and Flexible Working 3 March

Outcome Based Commissioning 9 March

ICT Strategy for Social Housing Made Simple 10 March

For details of the full course schedule visit www.socitmlearning.co.uk