WIREDGOV

Socitm, the association for digital leaders in local public services, and the Local CIO Council have welcomed the collaboration between itself, SOLACE (the council chiefs’ organisation), LocalGov Digital, iNetwork, iStand and others, to form the Local Digital Coalition.

The federally-owned Coalition has been established to help English local public services to unlock the benefits of collaborative digital service transformation. All local public sector organisations will be invited to join the Coalition, by endorsing its action plan.

A starter secretariat for the Coalition will be provided by the London Borough of Camden for 1 year, supporting Coalition members to meet regularly between April 2016 March 2017 to work on activities already defined, to develop further plans and to secure funding and resources.

Five key projects have been identified for year one:

• Blue Badge Attribute Checker
• DVLA API to enable councils to verify registered owner of vehicles (for taxi licensing and parking permit services)
• Extension of GOV.UK Verify to local authorities
• Local Waste Service Standards
• Integrated Care Record for health and social care

The Coalition will ensure that assets and resources from DCLG’s Local Digital Programme, that closed on 31 March 2016, are migrated to be used and developed by the Coalition. A new website http://www.localdigitalcoalition.uk has been developed to host these assets, and will carry information about Coalition activity as this develops.The Coalition action plan can also be downloaded from the website.

Martin Ferguson, Director of Policy and Research at Socitm said: “The Coalition breaks new ground in collaboration between its partners to drive the shared development and adoption by councils of five digitally transformed, joined-up service designs for the future."

Dylan Roberts, Chair of the Local Public Services CIO Council said: "Demonstrating how better outcomes can be achieved for citizens and businesses in their localities by simplifying, standardising and sharing best digital service design and practice in five service areas will be a key, common objective for the Coalition partners."

Socitm, SOLACE, LGA and LCIOC are preparing a 'Digital Leadership Manifesto’ to be launched at the Better Connected Live event in May 2015.

Further information

Vicky Sargent, Socitm Press Office
Tel: +44 (0) 7726 601 139
Email: vicky.sargent@socitm.net

Martin Ferguson, Director of Policy & Research at Socitm
Tel: +44 (0) 7931 456 238
Email: martin.ferguson@socitm.net