A white paper released in the wake of TheMJ and UKAuthority’s Digital Authority Forum shows that there is consensus on a number of key steps to local authorities getting the most out of digital transformation.
The Digital Authority Forum: Leadership and the Digital Agenda was held in London on the 26th May and delegates included chief executives and senior managers from across the UK’s local authorities and examined how local authorities could tackle technical, legal and cultural barriers to ensure that they could put digital strategy at the heart of their organisations.
The wide complaint amongst the digitally attuned in local government is that to too many leaders digital means channel shift, moving service attributes from a paper-based system to a web-based one. While this is often a necessary process, it doesn’t go anywhere towards the broader aim of digital strategy, the redesign of services at a fundamental level.
The white paper states that: 'Digital systems have the power to support collaboration and the integration of services across the public sector around the citizen. Providing better support for individuals can be done whilst developing platforms that could be widely re-used with minimal configuration. Services could be made much better; and the savings would be enormous.'
The biggest barrier to this in the current environment is the financial squeeze, 'a double bind, undermining the long term outlook for services while making it harder to provide the investment needed for a radical change'. This underlines once again one of the fundamental issues with digital, the need for organisations to work together, to pool resources, including budgets, to fully invest in reusable platform based service solutions.
There is a clear deficiency in support however, as the government will not offer funding to achieve these aims in the way that the Government Digital Service is able to drive this agenda forwards for central government departments.
Culturally local authorities are still a long way from embracing much of what digital offers. There is a perception, which is true to an extent, that leaving our old way of working behind will take many jobs with it. This, understandably, brings resistance to innovative solutions. People are entrenched in the status quo and people attached to old systems often outnumber keen innovators.
Change resistance is a major hurdle to be cleared, and one that needs strong leadership. Several steps are recommended to enable organisations to change their culture, including; Get the vision and narrative right; Engage with influencers; Test the ground and make decisions; Equip people with skills and resources; Launch the change and open the way; Celebrate, reinforce and renew.
Data sharing between both department and organisations is a vital element in transformation, and a timely one given the speed with which the devolution agenda is moving forwards. Legally there is a perception that the laws surrounding data protection are a barrier to change, rather than an enabler. The data protection act makes it clear that assuming a citizen is informed that their data will be shared, organisations can use it as they see fit.
However, perception of the issue is very different; 'This fear [of breaking data protection] has pervaded many areas of local services, and is often cited – sometimes as an excuse, sometimes as a genuine anxiety – as a reason not to share data. This can create a full stop to change.'
As well as highlighting problems with local authority’s digital agenda the white paper also list the opportunities and solutions that it presents. Chief of these is the rapid evolution of technology both in the workplace and at home. As the millennial generation makes its way through local government, they bring with them an assumption that digital, technological solutions are a default.
Other opportunities mentioned are; Normalisation of cloud as an operational, lower cost 'pay-as-you-go' infrastructure; Industry emergence of open standards for integrating software and systems and joining up data; The extensive capabilities of ‘commoditised’ software, providing a foundation for reusable platforms and making the IT estate more cost-effective, and; a flourishing ecosystem of app developers creating solutions for every service area.
Another opportunity that should add impetus to the transformation process is the devolution agenda. Already being pushed by central government and embraced by many in local government, devolution gives the perfect environment for new services to be built in as the partnerships will rely heavily on data-sharing to rebuild services. 'Federated data system... will not break down the existing silos in which data resides but join them up, with the central body acting as an information broker for all of those providing services at local level.'
It’s becoming clear that local government leaders are starting to take more notice of the benefits that redesigning services digitally can offer. The promise that platform based solutions have is significant and if the sector can work out how to collaborate to make this happen, the rewards will be huge.
To download a copy of the white paper please go to http://www.digitalauthorityforum.co.uk/white-papers/
The next Digital Authority Forum event will be held on the 7th December 2016 and will examine local cyber resilience. For more information see www.digitalauthorityforum.co.uk
