Socitm National Conference 2010

Michael Frater CBE runs a consultancy specialising in organisational change and transformation. His experience includes four local authority chief executive roles held over fifteen years. From 1993 he led a major change programme to transform performance at LB Redbridge.  In 2000 he moved to Telford & Wrekin which became the first 'Excellent' council in the West Midlands whilst also having the region's lowest council tax. In 2002, the Government asked him to become Interim Chief Executive at then troubled Walsall Council (in tandem with the Telford role), where he led a rapid improvement, demonstrating that government could 'heal it's own. He then worked on the Gershon Review developing LAA's with the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, before to Nottingham City Council where he launched a three year transformation programme while also establishing and chairing the Lifting the Burdens Taskforce.  Recent assignments have included Interim Chief Executive at Surrey CC from January to July 2009.   

Simon Norbury has been a leader in local government IT for the last 23 years. He has successfully managed several local authority IT operations, including Newham and Westminster . He has also advised central government on its e-government strategy and sat on numerous advisory bodies. Simon has a track record of introducing innovative systems especially Customer Service delivery and Westminster Wireless. He has won numerous industry awards and is a regular speaker on local government issues. Most recently, he has become an independent consultant and has worked closely in turning around technical delivery of the Government Connect programme and the design of secure File Transfer system between DWP and 410 Local Authorities. In particular, he has led on Security and Accreditation issues associated with introducing the GCSX network. He is currently assisting PSN on Code of Connection and G Cloud Quick Wins for local government.

David Molchany is a Deputy County Executive at the Fairfax County Government, Virgina, USA. He has a wide range of responsibilities including information and compliance-related areas, and is responsible for the strategic direction of the County's award winning e-Government program. This includes the County's website, multimedia Kiosks, IVR systems, mobile access, Access Fairfax Center, social media, text based alerting and Government Cable TV Channel. Fairfax County won the Center for Digital Government's Best of the Web award program in 2009 and 2007, its Digital Counties Survey in 2005, and was in the top five every year from 2006 to 2009. Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation recognised the county as one of the four top pace setters of the 12 top e-Government programs in the world.  David is a member of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and is a former ex officio member of the US Federal CIO Council.

Marie Snelling has a mixed private and public sector background. She started her Local Government career at Westminster City Council where she tackled a range of operational and strategic roles during her 8 years of service including transforming services such as the Youth Service to delivering the Council's first Supporting people strategy. Marie joined LBHF from PricewaterhouseCoopers Local Government team where she specialised in advising Councils across the country on the development and delivery of large scale, cross cutting and complex transformation programmes. She joined LBHF at a pivotal point in the organisation's transformation journey and has lead responsibility for delivering Customer Transformation across the organisation.

Workshop facilitators

Martin Ferguson is Socitm's first Head of Policy, leading the development and promotion of Socitm responses to major issues around public sector ICT, including data management and sharing; partnerships and outsourcing; self service; flexible working; and the pan-government security vision. He also drives associated stakeholder engagement with central and local government and the third and private sectors. Martin brings a wealth of experience to the role. Between 2003 and 2005 he was Assistant Director, e-government, at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), and prior to that he was Chief Information Officer at St. Albans District Council and during this time was elected President of Socitm.

Doug Maclean has more than 25 years experience in using information technology to achieve real and significant benefits. While a corporate director of ICT in a Scottish council, he was responsible for developing one of the earliest examples of what was later to become e-government, funded through the European Union. From that early experience he formed the clear vision of how IT in the public sector could be used to improve service delivery to
customers and reduce costs. Now in his leading role in Socitm Consulting, he tries to ensure that this same passion is reflected in what Socitm Consulting stands for.

Neil Moore, moved to the "dark side" (IT management) when he joined Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service in 2003 as Head of ICT. In that role he has overseen significant changes including the convergence of "comms" and "IT", implementation of new WAN and VoIP systems and the introduction of a service driven culture for ICT. He believes in shared services and participates in partnership initiatives such as a recent procurement of "PSN ready" network services for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Authorities partnership. He is a member of the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA), the Government IT Profession Board and is the IT Profession National Competency Lead for Delivery Management.

Liz Higgs worked for many years in DWP including on the front line and in policy divisions and spent time as a Minister's Private Secretary. She worked part time in the Cabinet Office for a year in the IT Profession team and whilst also working in the Department of Health supporting the National Competency Lead for Delivery Management, including drafting ministerial briefings and submissions. In this role she helped build Delivery Management up to the thriving go-ahead networking group that it currently is, with good membership from right across the public sector. She is currently working in Connecting for Health, the National Programme for IT in the Department of Health, where she supports the Director of Programmes. She also works with the current National Competency Lead for Delivery Management, Neil Moore, on DM group activities, including the annual DM Spring seminar which this year was on the theme of G-Cloud.

Marie Snelling - Please see Marie Snelling's biography in the speaker section above.