The Local CIO Council meets three times a year to review where local government can support, or if necessary challenge, the broader Government CIO agenda and to discuss other issues and priorities relevant to local public services transformation. The existence of this group and its meetings will also enable local government members of the main CIO Council to better represent local public services issues across the country at the main CIO Council meetings.

If there are issues you would like to see raised in the Local CIO Council, please email details to lgciocouncil@socitm.net

The inaugural meeting of the Local CIO Council was held on 1 April 2008. John Suffolk, the Government CIO attended the meeting and welcomed the establishment of the council. He said: 'I am delighted that the LCIO Council has been established. As Government CIO, I am always struck by the many positive examples of transformational government at work in both local and central government. The key for me is how we better share these examples so that we can bring about systematic change for the whole public sector. I believe the Local CIO Council has an important role to play in this and look forward to working with them.'

Under the current CIO Council structure, the interests of the local government community are served by two representatives. This has given local government generally, and Socitm in particular, greater understanding of, and access to, many of the plans and decision making processes that form the work of the Council. The Local CIO Council enables:

• every national IT group working under the auspices of either the CIO Council or the CTO Council to have at least one local public services IT representative involved, from active Socitm members; and
• representatives on the Local CIO Council to meet before the national CIO Council to discuss the agenda and provide feedback from a local public services perspective through their representatives on the CIO and CTO Councils.

The specific objectives of the Local CIO Council are to:

• strengthen the credibility and influence of local public services and Socitm in particular on national IT initiatives;
• help create a join-up between local and national initiatives, for example the way in which Socitm and the Cabinet Office consider developing the concept of an 'IT profession' for the public sector;
• enable its representatives on the national CIO Council to genuinely represent a broad range of interests; and
• provide a more effective conduit for discussion within the local public services IT community around ideas and initiatives from the Government CIO.