Issue 105 October 2008 (PDF 500KB) Download the latest version of the Socitm newsletter.
Index
Socitm 2008 Conference
Editorial
Conference Host and Keynote Speeches
Budget Cuts Rightways Wrongways Newways
Digital Exclusion — AKA ‘get your finger out’
Socitm Opens Its Doors
Information Management
ROCITM swings, rocks and rolls
Keynote Speaker: Harvey Mattinson
Gala Dinner and Entertainment
Graham Williamson Challenge Presentation
Citizen Sally — An “Innovative” Presentation
Benchmarking Dashboard
Raffle Prizes
Excellence Awards — Winners announced at Socitm 2008
What Exhibitors and Sponsors are saying
Socitm 2008 Partner Programme
President’s Welcome — Richard Steel
Richard spoke of the recent happenings within Socitm itself and its transformation to a policy driven organisation. The next big step is taking place here at the conference in terms of the EGM, which he saw as formalising what, up to now, had happened via stealth. This includes the proposed expansion of the Society membership to the whole public sector and the third sector, with grades of membership reaching from students to CIO’s. He referred to the increased partnership and inter-working with organisations like the BCS and the NCC, with Solace, the LGA, Intellect, Regional partnerships and Local and Multi-area agreements. He cited the example of the recent agreement reached by Socitm over Government Connects and the provision of a package of support, as a pragmatic way forward, to ensure CoCo compliance by the April 2009 deadline set by DWP.
He stressed however that the changes must not “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. He promised that the new Socitm would be:
- Inclusive
- Responsive
- Transparent
- Open
He encouraged all members to get involved and to volunteer to act as representatives of the Society. He described the Society as having been too inward facing for too long and he welcomed the moves to look outside, to engage with the community of stakeholders. He spoke of the new “Dashboard” approach to overall performance benchmarking, looking at real customer outcomes that was to be announced here at the conference (see details of the Socitm Benchmarking Workshop on 19 November).
Richard welcomed our overseas delegates, gave thanks to the Conference Organisers and closed with a reminder of the Conference Photography competition — closing date 28 October — (see http://socitmweb2.net/photos)
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This special issue of Socitm News is dedicated to information from the recent Socitm 2008 Annual Conference at the Celtic Manor Resort near Newport. It is hoped that for those who were unable to attend it will highlight the keynote messages and give the results of various awards, plus a flavour of the overall event. On the other hand, if you missed any of the sessions this might give you a flavour.
Maybe it will convince you to attend next year when the Socitm 2009 Conference is to be held at the Edinburgh ICC (why not put the dates 11-13 October in your organiser now). I apologise that lack of space means many worthy items, including all the parallel sessions, are not covered in this special issue, however some of the speakers’ slides, conference reports from several of the the sessions, photos and some videos are available on the Socitm website. Finally I wish to add my thanks to Ken Boxhall (Chair of the Events Activity Group) and his team for, yet again, an excellent conference, and a big thanks to all the sponsors including BeCrypt, IBM, Interplan, Microsoft, Red Hat and Thunderhead, Nortel, (Gala Evening), 2bm (Sunday reception), Front Range Solutions (Sunday Dinner) and Siemens (sponsors of our professional chair, Sara Coburn), Computer World (Wales) Ltd (delegate services and support).
Terry (Ed) Street terry.street@socitm.gov.uk
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Conference Host — Sara Coburn
Sara is no stranger to hosting Socitm Conferences, she made sure she thanked the sponsors of the evening’s reception and dinner on behalf of us all, before introducing the Conference Keynote Speaker, Paul Sloane. For the rest of the event she kept speakers to their time slots and helped delegates get to their next session.
Conference Keynote Speaker — Paul Sloane
Paul is also no stranger to Socitm, he last spoke at Socitm 2003, he described himself as a writer on Innovation and plugged his book (see details below). He started in a rather unusual way in that he repeated a joke he had told last time. It was about the school child who described politics to his teacher based on his dad’s descriptions and events of the night before. The punch line refers to a state of deep dooh dooh! Paul speculated that, 5 years ago, not even he could have predicted how much “dooh dooh” we’d be in by 2008. In fact he suggested that anyone predicting the recent credit crash and governments’ responses would have been considered “bonkers”.
He highlighted the implications on the public sector of the rescue packages being put forward and the further impact of a recession on public sector income from taxes. Paul predicted an even bigger gap between the ever increasing demands on the public sector and pressure on resources.
Who will rescue us?
Paul then posed the $20M question: “who will rescue us”, and he answered it himself by saying that ICT innovation was the solution, and would be driven by those sitting in the audience.
He used examples of ICT enabled innovation, such as on-line car tax application that saved DVLC 30% of its costs, saying we need lots more innovative ideas and he was here to help us. Over the next 20 or so minutes he shared his views on leadership and innovation and how we could drive changes. By way of illustration, he got us to change 3 things then 3 more and fed back that we had quickly undone them because the changes were imposed not bottom up. His message being that we must empower the front line staff to innovate. Leadership, he said, must create the vision linked to the organisation’s strategic aims and be prepared to be radical. He quoted the management guru Peter Drucker who said, ‘Every organization must prepare for the abandonment of everything it does’.
We must interpret the vision for our area, and interpret it for our jobs. He cited the example of the cleaner at Houston who said they were part of the team putting a man on the moon. He said a leader must help us all to see how our roles fit and help generate passion and a sense that the job is worth doing. Innovative Leaders inspire people to do this.
The next step is to use that “second favourite organ”, the brain — and he explained how we need to employ De Bono’s lateral thinking to challenge traditional thinking. He used video clips as illustrations throughout his talk. At this point he showed a clip about a student who, too late to submit his exam paper, quick thinkingly asked if the examiner knew who he was. When he said no, he hid it in the midst of the pile on the examiner’s desk.
He cited the first “self service” store in New York in 1920s that broke with the traditional retail model. He cited Peter Wood, founder of Direct Line Insurance. These are all examples of finding new ways to use existing techniques and technology.
Golden Rules
Paul offered us these Golden Rules:
Check Assumptions — he pointed out that Marconi had shown that expert’s theory can be wrong, in that radio ways did curve round the earth. He warned of the “intelligence trap” if you get challenged over seasoning your soup before you have tasted it the chances are that your dinner companion heard Paul’s talk and knows of Henry Ford’s filter for selecting and promoting managers.
Break The Rules — Paul spoke of the US traffic rule of turning right on a red light and a far more close to home example, of the M42 experiment to allow use of the hard shoulder to ease congestion, which has led to “active traffic management”. He urged us to ask searching questions, (and I would add to value our critics) and he mentioned the use of “astonishment reports” solicited from new staff. He hit us with yet another example, this time the way the new Head of the BBC asked groups of workers how he could make life better for staff and viewers. He pointed out that Google runs on better questions not better answers.
Take a different point of view — Paul asserted that “there is always a better way” we’ve just not found it yet. Paul used many examples: Newton and that apple, Ford and its free parking for Ford owners, Granada TV buying the wettest broadcasting region licence, and Rod McEwen’s open approach borrowed from Linux to get ideas on how to exploit his goldmine.
Borrow with Pride — Paul then urged us to not be afraid or too proud to use others’ ideas — to borrow ways to create the right atmosphere, provide incentives, use crowd sourcing and to look outside the public sector and the UK.
Empower People — Give them the opportunities to succeed, accepting some ideas may fail. Paul’s example here is the way an Intel employee was given permission to challenge a client’s brief and try a different approach that led to the invention of the microprocessor.
Then Paul suggested a rule that is probably the hardest to apply in the Public Sector ICT arena and when dealing with public funds (especially given the current banking fiasco based in taking extreme risks):
Take risks — welcome failure (but not incompetence). He said we must look for ideas like in the game “battleships” keep trying different grid references until we get a hit, and then explore that area. “Be prepared to allow staff time to experiment.” He said great ideas such as Google Earth came from this approach of empowering innovation.
He said Innovative Leaders use their knowledge, skill and imagination! They try incremental steps, tolerate failure often, but keep the stakes small. He urged that we praise failure in public because it’s good to try to improve — and pointed out that some organisation go as far as to empower staff to be innovative in works time; at Google it is as much as 1 day a week.
Editor...
This write up is an inadequate attempt to capture the impact of this speaker. For the rest of the conference nobody dared be caught shaking the salt or pepper over an untouched meal! Do not worry. If you missed this session and think it might be useful, you can always try reading Paul’s book:
The Innovative Leader: How to Inspire Your Team and Drive Creativity
By Paul Sloane, Published by Kogan Page Publishers, 2007 ISBN 0749450010, 9780749450014. Available on Amazon from about £9 new to £4.63 (used)
Alternatively come to the next conference and see an equally inspiring keynote speaker.
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CIO Issues Mike Lafford (Gartner)
He drew on the findings of Gartner's CIO survey and talked about widespread pressure to cut ICT spending. He made the point that when under pressure to make cuts the application of a pro-rata (say 10%), cut to ICT budget may be short sighted and it may be better to invest in ICT to enable savings across the board. (I remember trying to argue that one since the CCT days, Ed.)
He also stressed that deferring investment to meet cuts is not adding value it’s making it worse.
He described a framework for cost cutting and how to categorise items and assess the best candidates and eliminate the worst. e.g. avoiding high risk — low return items. He described a model for assessing an organisation and moving towards an enlightened management culture.
He suggested the need to develop a portfolio of initiatives, however he said that generally 20% are too expensive. 30% take too long — and that we must exclude any with benefits later than 6 month.
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Wayne David MP, Deputy Minister for Digital Inclusion
Apparently the minister Paul Murphy who was invited to give this presentation was called away to the National Economic Council to solve some minor budget issue regarding world banking. So we had an apologetic deputy stand in, Wayne David MP, who I felt did remarkably well considering he had been in post just one week. He said he had welcomed the offer of the post of Under Secretary for Wales with a resounding “yes”, but had been less certain of the Social Inclusion responsibility the post carried.
Nevertheless he was on a steep learning curve and had been well briefed so he had plenty to say on the matter. Wayne recognised the huge role Digital Technology plays in our lives and that this in turn increases the concern about digital exclusion. There are concerns in a number of key areas:
- Young people with no access to the internet (disadvantage in education is 1/2 a GCSE grade according to the DCSF)
- Independent Living and lack of access to telecare for those living at home, (Wayne cited his personal experience of his 83 year old mum and on-line shopping)
- Many Employment Opportunities needs access to ICT
As further example, Wayne said it is reported that 1/4 of those involved in Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) have never been on-line. Wayne said he has worked in Youth Services and seen first hand how, for example, those excluded from schools are disadvantaged by lack of access to ICT.
The Government’s response
Wayne assured delegates that the government was committed to address equality of employment via 6,000 centres in communities, and he referred to the “My Guide to” initiative.
He also highlighted a DCSF programme to supply computers for pupils’ homes. This was announced at Labour Party Conference and more details will follow including an action plan.
He referred to Socitm’s work with CLG (the subject of a parallel session at the conference later that day) and the consultation process referred to as “Get On-Line”. Digital Inclusion Minister Paul Murphy MP will launch the Government’s consultation on its blueprint for digital inclusion action — “Delivering Digital Inclusion — An Action Plan for Consultation” on 24 October 2008.
Sara then invited delegates’ questions for Wayne.
The first asked his views on the issue of top managers who were ignorant about technology. Wayne said he felt the statement was not false, he said that the issue is covered in the research and he said it applied to him personally and he had been obliged to make the effort to learn.
Another question asked if there would be specific financial support for employees to participate in self service payroll and HR. The response from the Deputy Minister was non committal.
Finally he was asked if using an on-line consultation process was not itself digital exclusion of the very people whose responses are required. In his response Wayne acknowledged that they have to deal with fact that there is a reluctance to engage, and he stressed that other consultation channels are available, including by post.
Wayne went on to discuss the broad agenda of ensuring transformation includes how it will improve life for everyone. It’s a clear message we must overcome fears and lack of trust in order to reach the sections of society so far “untouched”. It is felt that web use has now reached a plateau, and there is a sector of society being left behind — this is the real challenge for all society.
Terry (Ed) Street
UK Government’s digital inclusion strategy
I found this report on a speech by Paul Murphy on the UK Government’s digital inclusion strategy:
A strategy to get the last third of unconnected Britons online is being drawn up, said Paul Murphy, in his first speech since his appointment as minister for digital inclusion. He revealed the strategy could be in place by summer. Some 17 million citizens in the UK did not have access to a computer, either at home or at work, he said. The minister did not set a timescale, but said it would be in line with EU plans to halve the gap by 2010. “Chances are these people come from an older or socially, economically or geographically disadvantaged group,” said Mr. Murphy. Admitting that he was “not a technical person”, Mr. Murphy said that he had been studying what was involved in the role since Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed him in January. “The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I didn’t need to be technical at all. It also became pretty obvious the enormity of the work,” he told delegates at the National Digital Inclusion Conference in London.
Mission statement
The new cabinet committee set up by Mr. Murphy met for the first time last week.
“We came up with the following mission statement: To co-ordinate policies and a coherent strategy that all citizens, especially the disadvantaged, can benefit from new technologies,” he told the conference. Delegates welcomed the appointment of the first cabinet minister to have responsibility for digital exclusion.
“The vision from government seems now to be bigger and bolder,” said Helen Milner, managing director of UK Online centres, community-based groups aimed at connecting the disconnected. Jim Knight, minister for schools and learners, also had an ambitious target for his Children, Schools and Families department. “Our aim is to get access to every household with a child aged between five and 19,” he told delegates.
[Reading this gave me a strong sense of “deja vu” and a Google search soon explained why: On 28 October 1999, Chancellor Gordon Brown announced plans to boost access to new technology for 100,000 low income families in a scheme called GET ON-LINE: GET INTO THE INTERNET the three year scheme to enable those who cannot buy computers to lease them. It was all part of the Government’s £1.7 billion national IT strategy. Ed.]
Nine years later the “Get Online” drum is being banged again as the second annual Get online day is taking place this year on 24 October 2008, and it’s another chance for families to get into UK online centres and onto the internet...
See www.ukonlinecentres.com
Socitm Consulting Briefing on Digital Inclusion
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EGM and Membership Changes
Socitm members vote to simplify membership categories and give all members equal voting rights.
A vote by members attending the Extraordinary General Meeting held on 13 October during Socitm 2008 has resulted in the replacement of all existing categories of membership with two new categories, Member and Senior Member.
The Senior Member category will automatically include all current Full Members and any person who in the opinion of the Membership Board has an appropriate mix of qualifications and experience to merit this professional designation. Members who were not Full Members before the EGM vote will be allocated to Senior or Member categories based on a self-assessment process validated by the Membership Board. Details about this process will be published on the Socitm website and members will be alerted as soon as it is available.
Open doors
With immediate effect, the Socitm Member category will be open to any individual who has an interest in ICT and related disciplines in the public and third sectors, including suppliers to these sectors. Every member regardless of category will now be entitled to vote at all general meetings and in all Society elections.
Elected members
Those members nominated for the offices of President and Vice President must come from the Senior Member category and be in the full time employ of local government but members from any category can be nominated for any other elected office in the Society — although it is anticipated that this rule may change in future.
Membership Fees
From Jan 2009, membership fees for Senior Members will be set at the same level as current Full Members with the fee for Members set at 70% of the fee for Senior Members. In addition, the Society will pilot a new Corporate Membership Scheme to cover all ICT professionals in these organisations.
The EGM vote marks the first step in a new vision for the Society. Members can read more about this vision, and the background to the vote on the EGM page.
Non-members can find out more from our press release.
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Steven Noels, Outerthought.org
Steven spoke to a full hall on Information Management under the headings of:
- Organisation
- Classification
- Discovery
Steven urged us to re-think our attitudes to information and databases, to break away from rigid table structures and relational models. He spoke of the opportunity to let the user or customer (citizen) adds value for example via tagging information and using tag counts to select items of most interest. He used examples of technology such as: Google Big Table, Amazon Dynamo, and SimpleDB, Hadoop, and CouchDB. He extolled to us the virtues of repositories for capturing all related information.
He suggested that micro-content could be very powerful and cited Flicker (as featured in the Socitm 2008 Conference photo competition). He acknowledged the need for some form of moderation but stressed the value of a low “doorstep” so as not to discourage people from getting involved.
The prerequisites for success are a sufficiently large community, diversity and reward or incentives to add value to the community.
This for me was a thought provoking session, especially if I linked it with the Keynote on innovation, and the mixed attitudes to Web2. Maybe products such as “Facebook” do hold the key to a more innovative way to deliver some public services, or to help foster and grow the working relationships of staff in different organisations who are dealing with shared services delivered to common communities.
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After a delayed start we were treated to a great set from our talented volunteer entertainers. This year’s line up included (those whose names I can remember) Mark (Knofler) Wheatley (pictured right) — lead guitar, David Goddard & Mike — Drums, Paul Offen — Keyboard, Dave (guitar) Pete (guitar), Simon (keys), Tracey & Russell — Vocals plus guests.
The set got off to a rocking start with a few couples venturing to dance until the lights went up at about 11pm. I challenged the hotel staff why they felt it necessary to put up the house lights I was told it was essential so they could see to close up the bar, the harsh lighting almost killed the atmosphere, but not the great sounds from Rocitm. My wife, Rachael, and I danced enthusiastically until our energy expired and we left them playing into the small hours.
Terry Street
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Information Assurance and the Data Handling Review
Harvey remarked how times had changed in that here he was at a conference actually on the platform speaking, not hidden away in a corner. Security was now “Centre Stage”.
He listed initiatives over the last 12 months, the Information Assurance (IA) and Data Handling (DH) review, central government’s response and the ripples into local government. Although there are no direct mandates on local government the guidelines often have similar effect. The GCHQ has a traditional mandate over “Confidentiality at the Centre” but the CoCo rules now embrace the wider public sector including Local Government and NHS bodies.
He spoke of IA and the need to establish confidence in security by being Pragmatic, Appropriate and Cost Effective (PACE) and above all that information is available and correct.
On risk management he admitted a major issue for the security specialist is that Ministers don’t understand risk when applied to information, it is a cultural education issue. He observed how one person’s mistake had changed the world in terms of creating awareness so much it might seem right to give an award to the perpetrator (not a serious suggestion).
He said there is never zero risk, it is more realistic to talk of 80% and then focus on recovery of the 20%.
Harvey wrote the assurance and standards section of the National IA Strategy (NIAS) in 2006.
This was a holistic approach based on three enablers: governance and risk management, assurance and standards, and capabilities (partnerships).
Harvey observed that the current focus is on connectivity as this is key to shared and transformed government,(TG) and the recognition of the need to include local authorities since they are at the “edge”. It is led by CIO/CTO Councils.
Governance and RM will be achieved by:
- Ownership: Ministerial Committees and at BOARD Level.
- CIO/Centre joint control — IA executive for shared programs/services.
- Standardise RM — PACE — Defence in depth
- DHR and SPF requirements.
- Standards (ISO 27001, Legislation and Regulation)
- Accountability (AO/LA CEO — 151 Officer)
This is Managed top down via CJO and board Audit via an annual report and formal compliance with ISO 27001. He also spoke of accountability locally via 151 Officers and CEO responsibilities, the standard of performance required generally is Business Impact Level 2 — “defer a skilled attacker”.
Data Handling
The final report came out in June 2008 and is likely to lead to a prosecution. Sir Gus O’Donnell Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service is responsible for all government and accepts there is no guarantee but seeks to minimise the risk and the media focus.
The components include core measures, culture of valuing information, accountability mechanism and scrutiny of performance — all limited by the lack of resources.
It is possible to achieve high levels of security e.g. sharing child index needs level 6 — this is however achieved via a secure portal rather than a single database.
The risk management challenge is to balance ignorance vs. risk adverse attitudes, it is 60% common sense.
He cited BeCrypt (one of the exhibitors) as a supplier of encryption for laptops, he spoke of good practice based on 27001 across all government, and said CoCo is based on GSI/GC that has never fallen over.
Security Provisions in Contracts
He also referred to the standard clauses in contracts e.g. OGC/PUK ICT Services framework v 2.2.1 which is close to my heart and has raised issues where products and supplier say they are not ready and claim the costs are prohibitive.
For full details see: www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/csia
Slides are available from the Socitm08 presentations page.
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The excellent Gala Dinner was followed by the awards and then by a variety of entertainment. Following in the steps of how Past President Rose treated us to local talent in Belfast, here in Wales we had a traditional clog dancing display by talented Welsh musicians and dancers.
This was followed by the vocal delights of a huge male voice choir.
Finally it was time for The Man From Funcle to take the stage and the dancers to take to the dance floor. Those who wished to continue conversations adjourned to the bars.
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Frances, 25, wins Graham Williamson Challenge (travel award) 2008
Socitm has awarded this year’s Graham Williamson Challenge — a learning through travel award — to Frances Kettleday, a Technical Project Manager with Cambridgeshire County Council.
Frances was presented with her Award by Socitm President Richard Steel. The award was set up in memory of the former Head of IT at Argyll and Bute Council, Graham Williamson, who was passionate about mentoring people starting out in IT. It was sponsored this year by Microsoft.
As part of her job at Cambridgeshire CC, Frances is involved in planning delivery of an open access digital infrastructure for the proposed New Town of Northstowe, and plans to use her award to visit Sweden, the leading fibre nation within the EU, to gain experience of proven digital infrastructure solutions and applications.
‘From creating a virtual embassy in the 3D “Second Life” environment, to use of telemedicine to enable equal access to specialist healthcare across a vast, sparsely-populated landscape, Sweden has a wide range of innovative web-based solutions in everyday use’ says Frances. ‘I would like to look into best practice, investigate solutions in varying stages of development/maturity, and consider how delivering services electronically has improved community development, social cohesion and inclusion, and democratic engagement. This will enable me to draw on personal experience when working on the OpenAccess proposal for Northstowe.’
Richard Steel President of Socitm added: ‘Graham Williamson was a huge supporter of the initiative and enthusiasm of young people like Frances. He would have been delighted that the Award set up in his name will allow her to have this experience, for her own benefit certainly, but clearly also for the benefit of the projects she is engaged in and the people affected.’
Socitm will be using its international connections to help Frances identify contacts in central and local government bodies to support her visit. She will be mentored throughout her involvement in the scheme by a senior member of Socitm.
Frances will be invited to make a series of presentations to Socitm audiences about her travels and what she has learned. She will also be invited to become an adviser to the Socitm Board focusing on membership matters.
Further information: Frances Kettleday, Cambridgeshire County Council
frances.kettleday@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Last year’s GWC winner, Shey Cobley of Oxford City Council, has been speaking at Socitm regional meetings about her trip to India. Her presentation is available from the GWC past winners page.
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A Revolution at Socitm
Report from Christine at Twist and Shout into this innovative approach to communication.
Protests, handcuffs and someone’s Gran holding up a post office aren’t necessarily the things you’ve come to expect from the annual Socitm conference. It is however, exactly what the delegates who stayed for the final session, hosted by Siemens Enterprise Communications, got.
Citizen Sally — Power to the People was a 30 minute comic play commissioned by Siemens to help bring to life the issues behind the need for the new technology that’s currently available to councils.
Beneath the humour though was a very real and powerful message. David Hopkins Manager of Business Development at Siemens described the point of Citizen Sally as “touching on the fact that at the end of the day service is about human beings delivering services to other human beings”.
The play seems to strike a chord with a number of delegates, many of whom had similar experiences to Citizen Sally. “Just like any good drama it leaves you thinking and asking questions. I’ve only just come out of the session, but I’m probably going to dwelling on those questions as I drive home”, said Simon Berlin, Head of Technology and Transformation, Lewisham.
In the run up to Socitm 2008 Conference the play was promoted by a web campaign which can be viewed online at www.citizensally.co.uk.
Watch the video. As you may have gathered we wanted to try something a bit different from the usual PowerPoint presentation, so we hope you got a chance to watch our play ‘Citizen Sally — Power to the People!’ (If you didn’t get time or would just like to see it again please take a look at the highlights film on Sally’s website.)
For more detail or to get in touch please contact David Hopkins at dhopkins@siemens.com or call 01908 855 000.
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Announcing a significant development in benchmarking services.
Socitm Members are invited to find out all about a new package of benchmarking services to foster service improvements facilitated by ICT.
Date: 19 November 2008
Venue: The Old Sessions House, London, EC1
Roland Waterhouse
roland.waterhouse@socitmconsulting.co.uk
0845 450 2315
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| Exhibitor |
Winner |
Organisation |
| Centerprise International |
Phil Badley |
Stockport MBC |
| Centerprise International |
David Faulder |
East Dorest District Council |
| Imerja Limited |
Nick O’Reilly |
LB of Sutton |
| WICK HILL |
Adam Fielder |
Medway Council |
| SQS UK |
Roger Marshall |
Corporation of London |
Socitm is very aware of the complex rules surrounding officers accepting “gifts” from suppliers and ensures all exhibitors are aware of its policy. This is what the FAQ says: There’s no problem with you running a prize draw, but bear in mind that public sector employees are governed by strict guidelines regarding items and hospitality they may/may not accept. Perhaps it is timely to remind the winners that they may be expected to declare their prizes under their authority’s bribery and corruption policy and procedures.
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The winners and runners up of the 13th Local Government IT Excellence Awards were announced and prized presented after the formal dinner on the Monday night. The winning Case Study in each category was presented on the Tuesday morning.
The awards, the result of collaboration between Intellect, Socitm and SOLACE and supported by Datapoint, seek to highlight and reward local authorities that have used IT systems or processes to improve the efficiency and delivery of services within local communities.
This year’s awards were separated into three categories — service transformation, shared services and mobile & flexible working — and Intellect received a large number of projects of an extremely high standard.
The awards were presented at the conference by Charles Ward, Chief Operating Officer of Intellect and Chair of the awards judging panel, and Martin Hill-Wilson, Head of Strategy at Datapoint, the global communications experts for enterprise and call centre communications.
Commenting on this year’s awards Charles said: “The entries to this year’s awards have continued the trend of improving the standards in public service delivery. The winners have once again demonstrated local authorities’ ability to implement projects, through the innovative and effective use of technology, that deliver excellence in public services.”
Martin Hill-Wilson, Head of Strategy at Datapoint, commented: “Datapoint was delighted to support this year’s Local Government IT Excellence Awards, and congratulates the winners on illustrating how technology can transform services.”
The winners and runners up in each category:
1) Shared Services Category
Winner — Hampshire Local Government Partnership
The Hampshire Regional Recruitment Portal is a project where 12 of the 15 local authorities in Hampshire joined in a true partnership to deliver a single technology solution for attracting candidates and managing the recruitment process across the authorities.
Jos Creese, Head of IT for Hampshire County Council said: “The portal is an excellent example of shard services enabled by technology. By working together across local public services we have significantly improved recruitment opportunities and practices in the region.”
Runner up — Northern Ireland Civil Service
The Northern Ireland Civil Service set up IT Assist, its ICT Shared Service Centre, in May 2007. IT Assist provides “common” ICT services to some 11,000 users across seven Northern Ireland departments and will cover 18,300 users across all eleven departments and their agencies by April 2009.
2) Service Transformation Category
Winner — Kooth.com
The Early Intervention and Rapid Referral Service solves a significant problem for vulnerable young people and local authorities. The web-based counselling service provides young people with a free, confidential, safe, always accessible and, above all, anonymous and non-threatening way of asking for help when they first need it. It enables local authorities to intervene early with regard to difficult emotional and mental health problems being encountered by vulnerable young people. Kooth.com is a public-private partnership between Xenzone and Stockport Council and is live in seven LA areas.
Councillor Mark Weldon, Executive Member for Children & Young People, at Stockport Council said: “Kooth.com continues to go from strength to strength. This innovative public/private partnership rightly receives the national accolades for the difference it makes to young people when they need advice and support.”
Runner up — City of York Council
The easy@york programme was conceived to ensure all the council’s services are easily accessible by whatever channel the customer chooses and are also available on-line for 24 hour access. In the first financial year, the programme resulted in costs savings of œ247,000 while 96.9% of calls answered within 20 seconds and 99% of our customers are ‘satisfied’ with the service they receive.
3) Mobile & Flexible Working Category
Winner — City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council
Wakefield’s organisational change programme ‘WorkSmart’ is delivering real benefits for citizens, employees and the council. The integrated programme is rationalising the property portfolio, improving productivity and providing a modern, fit-for-purpose workspace. This is underpinned by a flexible technology infrastructure that is enabling staff to deliver high quality services to our citizens in the most appropriate way from office, home or mobile.
Keith Watson, Business and Project Manager at City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council said: “We are delighted that the WorkSmart programme, which has achieved significant efficiencies, has been recognised by winning such a prestigious award.”
Runner up — West Sussex Accessible Services Partnership
This project involved the deployment of 30 GPS mobile phones to field based staff enabling them to report incidents with no paperwork. The image is recorded on the phone with some simple textual information and an automatically generated GPS location.
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“Socitm2008 turned out to be a very good event for us, with IT security being top of everyone’s agenda this year.”
Mark Evans, Marketing & Communications Director, Imerja Limited
“Socitm2008 was the first national event I have been to that I think was genuinely worth doing, an excellent couple of days and we will certainly be at the event next year.”
John Payne, Local Government Sales Manager, 2e2
“Many congratulations for a great Socitm2008 show. We enjoyed it and again felt that the quality of attendees makes it a very worthwhile event for us to attend.”
Howard Inns, Sector Marketing Manager — Public Sector, Affiniti
“We had a good Socitm2008 event with plenty of interest. It’s highly likely we’ll be back next year.”
Mike Baker, IP Performance Limited
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Having been fortunate enough to go on the Partner Programme in Belfast, 2007, I was hopeful of another day of balanced or varied activities in and around Cardiff (an area unfamiliar to me), this year. Reading the itinerary at home, I was pretty sure that only a man or male team would plan such a tour for a group of (mainly) female partners. Included were: the Newport Transporter Bridge, Cardiff Millennium Stadium Tour, only 2 hours for lunch, sightseeing and shopping in Cardiff City Centre, Penderyn Whiskey Distillery and a scenic coach drive back through the Brecon Beacons to Celtic Manor. I know many a woman, and a few men, could simply shop for the seven and a half hours the day was planned to take! However we were soon to find that the enthusiasm of our driver and guides challenged us to join in and experience all this area had to offer us.
The Friends of Newport Bridge had such passion for keeping this unusual historical gondola people transporter open to the public, and encouraged us to go up it, at least in spirit if not in person, that we quickly went from gloomy tired individuals to a chattering challenged group! It was windy and cold the higher the climb, but several made it across (and back!) while the rest of us admired their tenacity.
The Cardiff Millennium Stadium Tour was much more interesting than I’d have thought, with a ripple of excitement knowing the showers/bathing area was in use when we first arrived. Again a keen and (rightly) proud guide helped us grasp the excitement, jobs, concerts and of course world class facilities (oh, and RUGBY!) this City Centre Venue has brought to hundreds of thousands already.
At last we had a chance for a hot drink and shop, sightsee or whatever. Our lunch, for those of us who went to the Bar Ha! Ha! was interesting and informative, as we learnt a little more about each other, and a lot about food! Those who shopped seemed to have enjoyed their time, too, and several of us had ‘errands’ to do and necessities to purchase for the evenings ‘Black tie’ Dinner. Than on to the Penderyn Whisky Distillery-the only one in Wales and a tour with smelling and sampling included for those who were up for it. At this point, a unanimous vote was taken and we returned to the Celtic Manor via the fastest route. Thanks to Colin, who had responsibility thrust upon him, and all the ‘partners’ present, who managed not to lose themselves! We all got back safely. Many thanks to all who work behind the scenes, and to the ‘sponsors’ who make this day possible.
Rachael (Mrs Ed) Street
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