Socitm President's Blog

Richard's Last...

2009-04-22T23:32:00.000+01:00

Well, this is my final post to the Socitm President’s Blog as the President. I will continue a public Blog at http://richardjsteel.blogspot.com/ and the ComputerWorldUK and CIO Magazine sites will also continue to carry my ramblings.

In my Stoneleigh conference opening address I’ll be remarking on a busy year, but looking ahead. We are investing in our future – with today’s appointment of a Head of Policy, planned appointments of a Head of Information Assurance, commercial developments, our rebranding, the launch of our new website, continued work with Government on key issues, such as secure public sector infrastructure, the launch, at the Society’s Edinburgh Conference, of our professional development programme and working more effectively with our Members through the regions.

I’m glad to take this final opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous support given by Socitm’s staff in Northampton, board colleagues, the Events Team, colleagues in Consulting, Insight and Boilerhouse and, of course, the Society’s membership – our lifeblood and reason for being.

My best wishes to the new President for a successful year in building and sustaining our influence on behalf of members. I look forward to continuing to work with the Team and to support, as Past President, and in whatever other capacity I’m able to!

Socitm's Patron

2009-04-21T23:08:00.001+01:00

I took a camera to Birmingham, intending to take photos at the Consulting event, but forgot, as I often do. Chris isn’t very happy, as she is making a scrap-book of my year as Socitm President, but I keep failing to provide her with material!

I remembered the camera as I skirted Parliament Square, today, for an information Assurance Events Advisory Board meeting at One Birdcage Walk, so took a picture of the continuing Tamil demonstration (but then thought better of publishing it!)

There is now a website for the UK’s Information Assurance Community, which includes events information, and a link to IA09, on 6th & 7th July. It’s hoped for a good attendance from Local Government, this year, and we already have two bookings – double last year’s number!

After the IAEAB meeting, I went on to The Adelphi, in John Adam Street, for an “Ocean & PSN Workshop”, chaired by Philip Littleavon, to plan a two day event to promote engagement with the Public Services Network developments by the Local Public Sector. We were joined by representatives of Buying Solutions, the DWP, Cabinet Office, and Vic Freir and Mark Brett on behalf of Socitm.

We decided the event will take place on 15th/ 16th September, probably at the School of Government, in Sunningdale, and target the Local CIO Council and its members’ Heads of Finance to ensure effective financial planning.

Whilst this won’t be a technical event, it’s important we are able to effectively articulate the Public Services Network rationale, and the Ocean Programme’s role. We’ll undertake further work in this regard, ahead of the event, and it’s important we use the opportunity for the local public sector to influence the PSN specification and requirements – especially in areas like flexible working and digital convergence. The work planned last Thursday, on pan-Government security vision, and a single Information Governance model for Government, will hopefully play into this work.

They’ll be a high-profile keynote address, and facilitated streams covering topics such as the Business Case, “Thorny Issues”, the Network and Security. The report-back from the Gartner Benchmark study of Government Connect value versus alternatives will (hopefully) support the case for investment.

You may remember that Lord Anthony St John of Bletso last year hosted a Socitm London Branch meeting at the House of Lords on behalf of 2e2 – our sponsor (and is again doing so, this year, on 7th May). This evening I met Lord Anthony with Terry Burt, 2e2’s Managing Director, and Andre Tytheridge, to discuss Socitm patronage. He entertained us to drinks in the Peers’ Guests Room and, I’m delighted to say, has agreed to become our first Patron! As Socitm’s Patron, Lord Anthony will promote our cause and introduce us to Ministers and Senior Civil Servants when the opportunities arise, when appropriate, will ask questions in the House on our behalf, and host occasional events in the House of Lords. He becomes an honorary member of the Society and will support and facilitate our developing Policy agenda and lobbying for effective Transformational Government Policy.

Lord Anthony is an enthusiastic supporter of ICT as an enabler of efficient Government, and of Community engagement through ICT and, until recently, chaired UK Citizens Online. I’m very grateful to our friends from 2e2 for the introduction.

Considering Consulting

2009-04-21T09:05:00.000+01:00

A major pile-up on the M1 delayed my arrival, on Sunday evening, to a Socitm Consulting Conference held at the Radisson SAS Hotel in Birmingham.

This was the first consultants’ get together in quite a while. Apart from the networking opportunity, the event was arranged to consider how the business will be taken forward in the future and, in particular:

· To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current model.
· To identify options for the future ownership, management and governance of Consulting.
· To begin to evaluate these options and arrive at a short list of those that should be considered further, with a view to reaching a decision later in 2009 as to the future direction of the business.

Adrian, David Houston and I attended from Socitm Limited, as we were keen to demonstrate our support and offer input on behalf of the Society. (Also, the Society co-funded the event!) A “core team” of 50ish consultants were invited to the event, most of whom (45) were able to attend. (Socitm Consulting has around 150 consultants in total.)

The evening started with a drinks reception, but we had to do some work to earn our Sunday dinner. Doug presented an overview of the business, and then each table was asked to consider what improvements in the Consulting operation were required and what worked well and certainly should not be changed. Communications came-in for some stick; it always does on such occasions! However, a number of opportunities for improvement were identified. We also discovered that some of our correspondence was being blocked in the spam filter of the 1&1 system used by some consultants, which is centrally managed! The things that consultants decided should not change were the Consulting brand, ethos and quality.

Monday was given over to a mixture of break-out sessions and feedbacks considering questions such as –

· Who should own the business?
· Who should direct the business?
· How could we create a structure that Socitm can engage with on a long-term basis? (The current agreement is to a three-year contract.)
· How should the consultant roles be structured?

Over the course of the day, the wish for a symbiotic relationship with Socitm was confirmed. A majority of consultants favoured participation in the ownership in the business, and a majority also favoured greater participation in the management of the business. Eighteen people volunteered to work with Doug and Vikki to develop how these objectives could be achieved. One of the issues for us both (Socitm and Socitm Consulting) to consider is whether/ how to raise capital to invest in growing the business.

A great many other issues were covered but, as I’m sure you can appreciate a lot of our discussion was “commercial in confidence”.

We finished just before 5.00 pm, and a small group of us went off in search of real ale, rather than join the throng at the hotel bar. We were taken to “The Wellington”, which for proper beer drinkers is an experience not to be missed! Then, back to the hotel for dinner and a competition between the tables for the most amusing tale of past experience. Chatham House rules, of course!

I was up at 4.30 am on Tuesday for the drive back to London, a quick catch-up and the day’s meetings.

If you Tweet it, they will come...

2009-04-18T12:57:00.005+01:00

David Pogue found a good use for Twitter. http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/if-you-tweet-it-they-will-come/#more-911

I worked from home, on Friday, spending half my time on a report to the Mayor concerning the liquidation of Caboodle.

Further to yesterday’s post about the “.gov.uk Naming & Approvals Council”, the following graph gives a breakdown if applications received in the last 3+ years, and is followed by a breakdown of the reasons for rejection over the last 3 months.

Aiming for Rational Government!

2009-04-16T23:07:00.002+01:00

I was back at Russell Square House for my first appointment, today, in a Socitm Intellect LG Forum Management Committee – the first, I believe that I’ve been able to make as Socitm President, and definitely the last!

Potential Thought Leadership work was on the agenda. Carla had drawn-up a short paper, from the context of “as suppliers of technology, Intellect members are uniquely positioned to provide an expert view of how technology can be put to better use in order to contribute to the first-class provision of public services in local government” - to provoke our thoughts on issues such as “what will Local Government look like in 10 years?” There was consensus on some of the immediate issues, including public sector aggregated procurement/ asset reuse, the role of the CIO and pervasive & unified community infrastructure.

Among the planned future Forum themes are “E-Government 10 years on” (18th November). I volunteered Priya to present the conclusions from her MBA Thesis on the subject, which she has just embarked upon.

David Pullinger, the COI’s Head of Digital Policy, again attended the start of today’s .gov.uk Naming and Approvals Committee meeting at Hercules House to give us an update on progress and take any questions. He told us that just over 50%, nearly 700, of the websites that were planned to be closed now have been, with commitments to close another 355. The COI is now getting a good grip on .gov.uk, and controlling Government web presence more effectively. Committee members were thanked for their contribution to this important work. The Team was now starting to tackle other Government domains, such as NHS, MOD and Police.

David’s erudite response to my question about the raison d’être for our work, given the power of search (see my Idle Thoughts on 19th March) persuaded me that it is indeed worthwhile. Whilst accepting that search engines are becoming ever more sophisticated and accurate, our work on audience focus, editorial policy and manageability – typically material that’s transferred to DirectGov is reduced to a tenth of its original volume - facilitates reduced bureaucracy and the promotion of trust in government. Tests have shown that DirectGov is now achieving higher trust levels that names like Tesco and the BBC. I mentioned that among our biggest challenges are appeals about requested use of acronyms that cite precedents. Whilst accepting that this can create some consternation, David was clear that precedents don’t count. The Naming & Standards Guidance is now our bible to help achieve consistency and coherence. He often asks people in Government to explain their own acronyms – and they often fail!

David was also asked about policy on portals, such as “My….”. Work on these was being undertaken by the CTO Council, linked to ID Management, with a particular view to avoiding the need for multiple log-ons. There is a “Contact Council”, also, undertaking work in this area - on intermediaries.

The major discussion item for the Committee was a paper covering:

· The maintenance of .gov.uk domain names in perpetuity. A study in 2007 revealed that 60% of the URLs cited in Hansard are broken links leading to 404 errors or ‘Page not found’. To solve this problem, COI has recently introduced new guidance on managing URLs [1] (TG125) which requires central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies to maintain all Web domains in perpetuity. This is possible even after a website has closed by maintaining the domain name and implementing redirection to The National Archives. Any public facing websites are to become part of the national archive as part of the public record and, henceforth, all requests for central government cancellations will therefore be referred to the COI.

· All .gov.uk domains that do not comply with eligibility criteria are to be removed. We believe there are quite a few which may have resulted from an organisation’s change of status, or as a result of guidelines having changed or not having been adhered to in the past. Socitm was cited as an example, but there are others, such as http://www.4ps.gov.uk/ It was agreed that all current domain names will be reviewed for eligibility, and that JANET (originally “Joint Academic Network) which is responsible for the administration and registration of .gov.uk domain names, should refer to COI renewals where the continued existence is not obvious. Ninety days be allowed to enable redirects of disqualified websites to their new domains before the DNS (Domain Name System for mapping IP addresses to websites) is withdrawn.

· The current list of central government websites – used in the Website Rationalisation project – contains a sizeable proportion (~25%) of non-government domains (e.g. .org, .co.uk etc). There are also examples of government domains redirecting outside the .gov.uk domain. It was agreed to review the current list of .gov.uk domain names within 6 months, and to review the current website rationalisation list and, where sites are not already due to close, insist on them being reregistered on .gov.uk.

There are, apparently, 3,955 .gov.uk domains at present; 147 were due for renewal in April.

In the afternoon, I met with Paul Davidson (Director of LeGSB) Mark Brett and Adrian Hancock to discuss consolidation of Information Governance Models for Local Government – of which there are many! Paul listed the following, but there are others:

· The CESG Information Assurance Maturity Model
· The LeGSB Information Governance Toolkit.
· The Adult Social Care Information Governance Toolkit.
· The DWP MoU for access to CIS.
· The CoCo for GCSx.
· The Data Handling Guidelines.

We couldn’t see why we should need more than one across all of the public sector. Applicability would depend upon a User’s role in Government. This, of course, is linked to the requirement for an overarching vision for pan-Government security. At the present, our silo’d Government departments each reinvent its own requirements in ignorance of others’, and Local Government is expected to struggle to cope with them all. Not acceptable! We therefore determined to organise ourselves to campaign for a more rational approach that starts with the pan-Government security vision. This will include requirements for accreditation of secure network access right across Government.

Some other issues fell-out of this discussion – including articulation of requirements for organisational Information Asset Registers, which also facilitate requirements such as Rights Management and the several other related data management requirements (such as spatial data) which currently seem to have their own management bodies acting independently of one another.

An issue for Socitm was how can we ensure our member representatives to Government Quangos are effectively supported by paid officers who will ensure that actions and decisions made in meetings are taken-forward?

We agreed to plan a day in which the morning will be dedicated to developing earlier work on engaging wider public sector stakeholders in building and lobbying for sign-up to the required pan-Government vision, and a workshop, in the afternoon, will determine Information Asset Register, linked to Information Reuse, requirements. Recruitment of volunteers for a “Psikey” pilot will also be covered.

In the evening I joined Adrian and Rose for dinner with four of the short-listed applicants for the Socitm Head of Policy position. They are being interviewed, tomorrow, by a panel comprising Steve Palmer (incoming President) Rose Crozier (HR Director) and Adrian Hancock I(Managing Director). The fifth candidate is on holiday, and will be interviewed during the course of next week’s Socitm Spring National Conference.

On getting our own houses in order...

2009-04-15T23:49:00.001+01:00

Most of my day was spent at Russell Square House. Adrian and I met with Stuart Roberts and Richard Paugh of the Corporate Executive Board, in the morning, to consider options for partnership with its CIO Practice Area. In the afternoon, we met Spencer Green and Richard Owen from GDS International, considering possibilities for working with its MeettheBoss networking channel. Both meetings were follow-ups to earlier meetings I had with representatives of those organisations, with a view to potentially setting-up an executive stream within Socitm to facilitate ICT leadership and executive engagement, and ensure that we do not compromise the Society’s IT management legacy as we grow our support for the wider profession.

There were attractions in working with both organisations. The CIO Executive Board was particularly strong in executive insight, networking and analysis, whilst the MeettheBoss format uses Web 2.0 technologies effectively to support networking in a disparate environment. Adrian and Steve Jones have also had discussions with Learning Pool, in a wider Society context.

The next, critical, stage is to develop the financial and business models for consideration by Socitm’s Board and NAC.

Then, Mark Brett joined Adrian and me to discuss his role in conjunction with our forthcoming appointment of a Socitm Head of Policy. Mark’s work on Information Assurance has been invaluable for Socitm and, frankly, has been largely self-directed, and its worth has not been truly appreciated. (So far as we’re aware, Mark is currently our only CLAS Consultant.) Some of the activity Mark has undertaken for us will become part of the new appointee’s role, but Adrian and I were keen to take the opportunity to use Mark’s expertise to formalise effective resourcing of Information Assurance and Security policy and requirements through a Head of Information Assurance role - through which to further build our capabilities in this area. We therefore used the session to develop a better understanding of the IA/ Security scene, with a view to further developing proposals.

I’m not an avid follower of Sitemorse, but couldn’t help noticing the reference, in its recent newsletter, to the frequency with which some of the LGA’s recently proscribed words can be found on its own website! “A number of the banned words were found when looking at some of their website pages, worse offender being worklessness, which occurred nearly 100 times, other culprits included; spatial, framework, initiative.”

A Hectic Three Weeks...

2009-04-14T18:18:00.001+01:00

Today’s Socitm Board Meeting, at Camden Town Hall, was my last as President and Chair.
As always, the minutes will be published in due course, but some noteworthy items were:

· A revised base budget for 2009 was agreed, which provides for some investment from reserves to fully cover financial implications of expenditure agreed in resourcing policy and commercial development requirements.
· Adrian, David and I will be attending a Socitm Consulting Conference, at the beginning of next week, to get to know the Team, discuss further development of the business and share our plans, hopes and aspirations for the Society.
· Adrian presented a paper proposing organisational changes to support commercial and business development. This involved utilising Socitm Services Limited (SSL) which Socitm still owns but has been inactive, for all trading activities. SSL, as a company limited by shares, is the appropriate body for commercial developments, whilst membership services should continue to reside in Socitm Limited, which is limited by guarantee. We agreed that the Commercial Board should further develop the proposition.
· We also discussed the status of discussions on business partnerships. We agreed that we now have a good understanding of the ways in which we should work with business partners and that there is strong interest from a number of businesses in entering partnerships. The main concern, ‘though, was in ensuring that we are able to resource effective account management and ensure that we fully deliver the outcomes we commit to - a “chicken and egg” situation. We agreed to finance some additional work to develop that capability and generate the confidence to enter partnership opportunities as soon as possible.
· We also discussed our structure and branding to facilitate the different sectoral focuses that are evolving within Socitm, and the suggestion that there should be a “parent company” with sector-specific subsidiaries covering CITRA, web management etc. It was agreed that Adrian and I would develop the proposition, consulting Vicky on branding considerations (one of which is our transition to the .net domain).
· Sadly, the CMS development has further slipped, and I definitely won’t be able to present the “look and feel” at next week’s AGM, as I had hoped to! We agreed action to ensure the development is fully completed ahead of the annual conference, when we also aim to have completed structural proposals to support membership and professional development, which the CMS will be needed to support.
· There were a number of actions to be taken forward through a number of key meetings that are scheduled in the next three weeks – meeting of the National Advisory Council, the Membership and Commercial Boards and, of course, next week’s conference and AGM.

Aide Memoire

2009-04-10T11:01:00.002+01:00

You may remember that I’m an admirer of New York Times columnist, David Pogue. (In fact, now I thought of it, I’ve added a link to his Blog – “Pogue’s Posts”.) His most recent video is about a “memory tool” called “reQall”. I’ve got the world’s worst memory – especially when it comes to remembering things to do with my personal life that I need to do in the working day – make a Doctor/ Dentist appointment, book a car service, buy a present etc – so I’m giving ReQall a try.

Yesterday I met Richard Quarrell at the IOD Hub in New Broad Street, and discussed progress with the Psikey development. A new version of Psider (the tool to produce Pskey) is being produced by the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at Southampton University, and will be available in a couple of weeks. The plan, then, is to test through the summer with a view to producing a production version in September. I’ll be meeting Paul Davidson and Ian Cooper, next week, and hope, with them, to identify prospective pilot sites. Richard will be at the Socitm National Spring Conference on 23rd April, which is where Richard Allan will be presenting on Government policy on reuse of information, and available to talk with interested parties about the project.

After lunch I went to 59 ½ Southwark Street for a Socitm/ Capital Ambition planning meeting, with Steve Pennant, Roland Waterhouse, David Tidey and Ray Whitehouse, for this year’s London Local Authority IT Benchmarking Survey. Many of the standard Socitm benchmark questions already align with the Authority-wide benchmark survey being developed by Capital Ambition (London’s RIEP), which is also developing a set of “Leading Practice Principles”. I suggested to Steve that CA looks at Socitm’s recent “What’s in a name?” report regarding suggested IT principles.

IT benchmarking is becoming more challenging in our converged and flexible world, and we recognised, also, the need to focus increasingly on benchmarking outcomes, rather than inputs. It was apparent that we can’t move very far in that direction this year, but agreed much of the work to be done for future years, and are looking at potential quick wins, this year, including whether we can include a Data Quality Survey based on the work led by Brent Council.

Since I’m very much concerned both with digital convergence and broadband wireless developments, this story, of Westminster City Council’s use of CCTV for traffic management, caught my interest, and will be interested to follow the outcome.

If you build it, they will come!

2009-04-08T18:23:00.002+01:00

There were still Tamil protesters on the green as I crossed Parliament Square for the third day running, this week, to attend another meeting chaired by Tim Allen at the LGA. We were to discuss marketing and communications, business processes, roles and responsibilities related to the role-out of the proposed public sector licensing agreement. Details are still embargoed, but Andrew Gibson of “Buying Solutions” (as the former OGC Buying Solutions is now to be known), who was there along with Nathan Morgan, promised to call me as soon as Nigel Smith (OGC Chief Executive) has signed the contract, when I’m free to Blog it!

Then to Steria’s offices at Holborn for a final Caboodle Board meeting - to agree the filing of the Company’s accounts, and to recommend to shareholders the winding-up of the Company.

In this week’s “Local Government IT in Use”, Michael Cross wonders why public sector organisations find it so hard to learn from each other - especially when it comes to the implementation of new technology. To quite a large extent I agree with him, although I do think the scene is changing fast - q.v. many of the developments that I’ve been blogging about this year, which are genuinely innovative, market moving and will finally give substance to all the hype around shared services. I’d like to think that Socitm can take some credit for encouraging and supporting these developments as a “critical friend” to Government, as we set-out to do a year ago. However, of greater significance, I believe is the new focus on public sector infrastructure that facilitates the deployment of new technology, such as flexible and mobile working (which is the example discussed in the article).

Building Accessible & Secure Local Applications

2009-04-07T23:26:00.002+01:00

James Lee and I met at Newham Dockside for a PSMP progress review. It’s planned to launch at the other four Olympic boroughs in July, and for the portal to simultaneously be made available in all other London boroughs, although local Council content will be dependent upon individual Authorities commissioning the requisite development work, if they want it. This can be procured from any developer, but if SNT Media Networks do the work, the cost will be capped at £38K. As well as TfL’s Local Journey Planner, new content will include “Report it” and Cinema Listings.
It’s also planned to provide localised data from DirectGov and the Job Centre Plus service.
A Stakeholder event has been arranged for 29th April, ahead of which James and I agreed to set-up a further strategy session to bring all three partners (SNT Media Networks, TfL and LB Newham) and their advisers up-to-speed with developments.

An EAS Board meeting was held today at the DfES offices in Great Smith Street. It was reported that the funding model for the wider service delivery model will be available within 6 weeks. Progress remains good with 62 MOUs for use in Contact Point now signed. Other “pipeline” applications/Service Providers include the DWP’s Customer Information System, the e-Common Assessment Framework, the Youth Justice Board, the Learning & Skills Council, the Qualification & Curriculum Authority, the DCMS (Olympic Boroughs) and DCLG Data Integration Hub.

Afterwards, I met with Anders Henrikson and a colleague from Verisec, who were visiting the UK from Sweden to promote the company’s “Authentication Appliance” which is one of the local authentication applications (others are from Microsoft and Thales) that can complement EAS, and is being implemented in Salford – the first EAS pilot site. Having negotiated the Tamil demonstration in Parliament Square, I met Anders in the St. Stephens Tavern, and we discussed how Socitm can help in promoting the Verisec solution.

ID cards and enhanced passports have moved a step closer with the announcement of supplier contracts. The CESG has today written to stakeholders suggesting an Identity Management Collaborative Working Group on 23rd April – the day of Socitm’s Spring National Conference. As the notice is rather short, I’m hoping that others will also be unable to attend, and an alternate date has to be found.

BT's Italian Job

2009-04-06T23:24:00.001+01:00

Richard Carde and I met with Sean Harney and colleagues from Orange to discuss collaboration linked to Newham’s Telecommunications programme, and 2012. We agreed to work together strategically, and will develop a Memorandum of Understanding, and Non-Disclosure Agreement, under which we’ll share information, our business case and seek to agree a common roadmap.

Tim Allen hosted a meeting at the LGA’s offices in Smith Square to discuss the Collaborative Government ICT Procurement Strategy being worked-on by the OGC at the behest of the Central CIO Council. Pippa Bass, Director of Procurement Efficiency at the OGC, and Chris Kynaston, who is managing the project, also attended. Chris circulated the paper developed for the CIOC ahead of our meeting, which was agreed as being, on the whole, a reasonable approach to tackling obvious efficiency requirements. Tim called the meeting to ensure that the wider Local Government community were appropriately consulted, and in order that organisations like the LGA and Socitm can lend appropriate support to the initiative. We agreed to set-up a time-limited team with representation from the LGA, Socitm, Local Government Delivery Council and IDeA to facilitate these requirements.

Concerning the paper, my main concern was that it doesn’t seem adequately to reflect the fact that efficient procurement isn’t just about the least cost, but must facilitate market moving developments – rather than encourage stifling of innovation by encouraging suppliers to bid old technology, sweating their sunk investment, but delaying deployment of technology to benefit the wider public sector and communities it supports.

The fibre outage in Stratford, which resulted from 2012 contractors cutting through BT’s main fibre in the area, didn’t affect Newham’s main network, but feeder services to some small / outlying sites were lost.

Consolidation in Government IT

2009-04-04T12:51:00.002+01:00

Somehow I missed this Guardian story on 1st April, but it still amused.

I’d be grateful for your support by completing this short survey on digital inclusion from David Clayden on behalf of Socitm & the CCitDG.

At Thursday’s Local CIO Council, a representative of OGC Buying Solutions was present to support my update on the proposed Public Sector Microsoft Licensing deal. The proposals were fully endorsed (and by the Central CIO Council, on Friday) and its hoped to make a public announcement soon, subject to finalisation of a few legal details and completion of the sign-off process.

Simon Norbury attended to agree proposals for benchmarking, by Gartner, of Government Connect infrastructure at four sites nominated by the LCIO Council versus previous intra-Government communications arrangements.

We broke into four groups to discuss the four business driver themes developed by Jos, Glyn, Mick and I – Public Service Efficiency and the Role of IT, Information Assurance and Information Management, Partnerships & Public Service Join-up, and Government Infrastructure Programmes – and were asked to decide if these were the right drivers, what were the underlying work stream requirements, and desired outcomes. You’ll see the results in the published minutes from the meeting but one required outcome was a CoCoCo – Common Code of Connection – which elicited suggestions of how this might become a CoCoCoCoCo – Comprehensively Co-ordinated Common Code of Connection etc, but most of the time we were very businesslike!

Roy Marshall gave an update from the DCLG, which he said has been ranked in the top quartile for IT, versus its peer group. Much of this concerned database rationalisation – not, it was stressed, for data sharing purposes, but for organisational efficiency. A Data Interchange Hub is at the heart of planned developments. There was some discussion, also, of the Operational Efficiency Programme, and expected radical IT cost savings requirements.

Kate Silver, Cabinet Office Transformational Government Lead on the Government IT Profession, attended to discuss how we should work together. The Government IT Profession is mandated for the Civil Service. Although the mandate doesn’t apply to the Local Public Sector, Socitm has joined “Partners in Professionalism” – the partnership of organisations involved in developing the profession, and Bernard Gudgin and Adrian Hancock have led for Socitm, to date. Rose and Kate arranged to meet to discuss how we should boost our engagement.

The Group also agreed to review the recently published Government strategy on Open Source, for endorsement at our next meeting.

On Friday morning I teleconferenced with John Skinner and Chris Blenkhorn, from Cisco. Chris has produced an excellent “Connected Community Blueprint”, which Socitm would like to endorse. I had a few suggestions for a Section on building trust and describing security requirements, which Chris agreed to incorporate.

In the afternoon I attended Socitm South’s Committee Meeting, at Mole Valley DC offices in Dorking, to discuss support from the Centre, regional development, business partnerships and Socitm’s “USP”. Perhaps the key requirement to emerge was for centrally managed liaison with the regions - particularly with a view to effective events co-ordination.

We also discussed and agreed a stimulating agenda for the branch’s next meeting on 12th June but, unfortunately, I cannot attend as they’ve gone and booked it for 12th June, when I shall be in Le Mans!

April Fool's Apology

2009-04-01T23:44:00.002+01:00

I thought this article about the Conficker Worm quite interesting. "This is very professionally architected design and development."

There are now over 300 members of the Socitm Web Improvement & Usage Community of Practice. (Registration required.)

The FAQs I referred to yesterday have been published.

After working at home, today, I enjoyed a leisurely drive to Sunningdale Park for this evening’s CIO Council dinner, and tomorrow’s meeting.

I owe PC World an apology. They ‘phoned first thing this morning to say I had booked a delivery time-slot on Thursday morning – 2nd April. I checked my order acknowledgement and receipt before ‘phoning, last night, but they didn’t include the booked delivery time. However, on checking my PC World account after this morning’s call, it did indeed say I booked for tomorrow. Why I did this, I cannot say, but have had a lot on my mind lately! Luckily, my daughter Kim will be home to take delivery as, thanks to the G20 Summit, the University of East London building where she studies, will be closed tomorrow.

On Civil Service & Zero Service

2009-03-31T20:20:00.003+01:00

On Friday I was e-mailed a number of questions about Socitm’s constitution and operations, which necessitated my checking with colleagues on a few details that I wasn’t sure of myself. Jos Creese suggested we adopt a “FAQ approach” when responding to such queries, which other board colleagues readily agreed. We’ll therefore use those questions to start a new Section in the Governance & Management Section of the Society’s website (which should be there tomorrow) and build it up as new questions are received.

I recorded two interviews (on Broadband Britain and Green IT) at GBTV’s studio in Chiswick, this morning...

…and took part in a Whitehall & Westminster World Civil Service Roundtable on “how can online interest groups and social media be utilised to deliver better government services”. “Whitehall and Westminster World” is a fortnightly newspaper for civil servants and parliamentarians, linked to the “Civil Service Network”. An article on our deliberations will be published in the 19th May edition. I was pleased to have the opportunity of representing the local public sector in this important debate, held over lunch in the Atrium at 4 Millbank, and hope for many more such opportunities for our sector. Other attendees represented:

· The Power of Information Taskforce Secretariat, Cabinet Office.
· The Security Industry Authority.
· The Employment Tribunal.
· Transformational Government Communications, Central Office of Information.
· The Ministry of Justice.
· The Policy & Strategy Directorate, Department of Health.
· The Food Standards Agency.
· EzGov Europe (sponsored, I think).

This was an enjoyable discussion, with no epiphanies, but progress towards consensus on the key issues. I was concerned to establish the context, which includes Broadband Britain requirements, Unified Computing/ Network Convergence, creating trust in Government through an effective security infrastructure, and public understanding and management of the risks.

I understand that a list of links to useful resources is to be circulated but, in the meantime, here are one or two that I noted down.

· COI Guidance on Engaging through Social Media
· http://www.recovery.gov/
· Tom Watson’s Twittering.

At the weekend our family PC broke-down (again) needing a new Graphics Card (I think). I ordered one online from PC World on Sunday evening. It was in-stock and, at extra cost, I could arrange a delivery time-slot on Tuesday morning, when Chris would be home. So, I rushed home early this afternoon but, guess what? No Graphics Card. On ‘phoning Customer Services, I was told that the product hadn’t even been despatched to the Courier, yet, but they’d gladly refund the extra I’d paid for special delivery! Grrrrr – and people complain about public service! I’ve written requesting that PC World kindly expedites delivery – but I won’t have an opportunity, now, to fit the new card until the weekend. Sorry, family!

Broadband Britain & the Flight to Quality

2009-03-30T22:57:00.001+01:00

Today was my first working at Newham Dockside (formerly Building 1000) since the fit-out was completed, and I was mightily impressed!

I met with David Wright, a Newham-based Telecoms specialist, to discuss the “Integrated deal for broadband stimulus” that he has created, and garnered a lot of high level support for. The proposals aim to facilitate the achievement of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain Vision, with financing through “Broadband Bonds” supported by banks and government, with the public sector as the network aggregate anchor tenant. Socitm could play an important part in the proposed programme. We exchanged contacts and agreed to stay in-touch while continuing exploration of the opportunities.

Richard Carde, Geoff and I met to review progress in the Newham Telecoms Convergence programme. Sadly, our ambition for the development of a Data Centre for 2012 and other regional opportunities at Newham’s Bridge Road Depot no longer seems viable, and we cannot justify further work towards it, but the programme is otherwise shaping-up well, and Richard has really “got the bit between his teeth”!

Microsoft’s Helen Gilroy and Mike Haigh came to meet with me to discuss prospective business partnership with Socitm.

Harvard Management has published a list of common mistakes businesses make during a recession. They include cutting IT projects so, naturally, I thought it worth a mention here. The other side of the coin, however, is a report of IT professionals lacking ambition. I agree with both, to some extent, and believe they are consistent with the mantra Socitm has developed around focussing on effective business utilisation of IT infrastructure, rather than benchmarking in isolation, and in working closely with the executive to develop business efficiency through ICT.

Prioritising the Priorities

2009-03-27T18:11:00.002Z

My latest report to Socitm members was published today.

From Llandrindod Wells, I drove to Birmingham for a meeting in Glyn Evans’ office at Birmingham City Council’s impressive edifice in Victoria Square, and felt really important being let-in to park in the Council House’s courtyard!

Glyn, Mick Phythian (“The Great E-mancipator”), myself and Local CIO Council Chair, Jos Creese, had arranged today’s discussion in advance of next week’s Local CIO Council meeting to prioritise and structure the agenda for that and future meetings.

We agreed the CIO Council should (and can afford to) only focus on areas where we can make a real difference, and we pruned the proposed work programme accordingly. Our efforts will be grouped under the following broad areas (including mandatory projects where they do not readily fall under these themes):

· Efficiency
· Partnership
· Government infrastructure
· Information Assurance

In a number of areas, such as Green IT, we agreed to maintain a “watching brief”, although some aspects will certainly be addressed directly by work in the core themes. We agreed, also, to ensure effective linkage to key activities already being progressed elsewhere, such as the Data Quality work being led by Brent.

We recognised the need to align with the 35 Government projects that we understand have been identified by the DCLG, and with the Central CIO Council.

The other main point of discussion was resourcing, and CIO Council members’ roles as sponsors of the activities it instigates or are brought under its remit.

…And then home to work on that pesky backlog, although there is still several days’ worth as I knock-off to start my weekend.

Finally, this week, heart-felt thanks, and farewell, to Joye, who has been a brilliant Personal Assistant to Geoff and I, but, having taken voluntary redundancy, her last day working for Newham was today. Joye – I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you, but all the best for the future!

Have a good weekend.

Welsh Reminder

2009-03-26T20:52:00.002Z

Five years ago my TVR, of the time, broke-down during a weekend away in the Brecon Beacons, and Chris and I had to travel home with our car on the back of a trailer. This involved several hours’ wait for a truck to come from Cardiff, as the only locally available truck had already been hired for an earlier TVR break-down; so we arrived home in the wee small hours, with a considerably lightened wallet and, with an embarrassing clanking of chains to let the neighbours know we’d arrived, offloaded the car to our drive.

I was reminded of this as I drove, today, past the break-down spot on my way to the Socitm Wales meeting in Llandrindod Wells - Powys’ County Town.

The meeting was well-attended, with 19 of Wales’ 22 Local Authorities, and other public sector bodies, represented, and I was very impressed at the level of engagement and focus in a busy agenda.

I arrived during Mark Brett’s presentation on Information Assurance and Security, in which members agreed to set-up a Welsh Regional WARP (Warning, Advice & Reporting Point – see http://www.warp.gov.uk/ ) facilitated by Socitm.

In discussion following my Society “Sitrep” Wales was supportive of the direction of travel and agreed representation to the early summer workshop to formalise a federal structure and associated protocol and procedures.

I remained to the end of the meeting, and local agenda issues, and was particularly interested in the feedback from Socitm Wales Chair, Phil Evans, and Dave Hylands on PSBA (Public Sector Broadband Aggregation) in Wales, and subsequent discussion. Much of the discussion would have been confidential to the Group, but I’m sure they won’t mind my mentioning planned lobbying for Government maintenance of, and adherence to, the Universal Service Obligation.

And the Winner is....

2009-03-25T23:15:00.001Z

I attended the Employee Authentication Services Community of Interest Working Group at PA Consulting’s offices in Buckingham Palace Road.

Full details of the service have now been updated in the Web Authentication space at GovX, but an EAS site is being created as part of a new DCSF site for Local Government.

Cornwall, Leeds and Hants are involved in a Marketing and Communications Sub-Group. In his update, John Skipper reported encouraging engagement by Local Authorities, and the programme is generally ahead of plan. However, experience has shown that we cannot start too early on the process of accreditation. Alignment of processes from IT, HR and the business is a major factor.

In discussion, we agreed that an important part of the Communications plan is to highlight that EAS is a key part of the solution to issues raised in the Joseph Rowntree Trust report. (Not the problem!)

The DCSF will share its Project Plan for Registration Authorities, which are expected to number about 140.

The DWP is looking-at the opening-up of databases not already accessible by Local Government, such as fraud & debt management, based on use of EAS for access, and there is growing interest from other departments. Whilst William Barker, from the DCLG, rightly cautioned against over-promising and raising expectations that may not be filled in the short-term, I, as always, wanted to stress the opportunity of presenting pan-Government vision on security and Information Assurance, supported by key components like EAS.

Otherwise, there was much discussion of the economic business case. For larger authorities, say 500+ Users, they are clear, but aggregation, reuse and cost sharing will build-on the business case for smaller Authorities.

I went on to the London CIO Board meeting chaired by Phil Pavitt at TfL’s offices in Buckingham Palace Road. The main focus was on gaining buy-in to a London broadband vision (without complicating the message with too much technical detail!)

There were brief updates on all the work-streams, the most significant of which appeared to be an agreement for the Metropolitan Police and TfL to merge their networks creating a fully converged broadband infrastructure linking every borough.

In the evening, Paul Hackett (who assisted me with LGC Awards judging whilst I was on my New Zealand sojourn) attended the LGC Awards dinner, as guests of Northgate, at the Grosvenor Hotel in London’s Park Lane. Dara O’Brien compèred brilliantly. Got home late.

The Power of Regulation?

2009-03-24T23:04:00.001Z

Whilst Monday’s Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust’s report, “Database State”, has led to the suspension of the DfES’s Contact Point project, EURIM’s Philip Virgo has published an interesting and informative article on Governance Frameworks for Identity Management.

Whilst I can certainly appreciate the concerns about excessive intrusion into citizens’ lives, and am against both “control freakery” and the “Nanny State”, I believe that, in modern Society, the regulated collection of some personal data to enable public service improvement and combat fraud is necessary. There is already too much indiscriminate, and unregulated data collection in all sectors, so effective regulation is the key.

Socitm has consistently lobbied for pan-Government Vision shaping cohesive strategy on Security and Information Assurance that will enable appropriate role-based access to information, with identity management and authentication services at its heart. Perhaps the missing regulatory component is the licensing of public sector databases through the Information Commissioner’s office?

Direct House Swan Song

2009-03-24T07:41:00.001Z

The Socitm Events Group met, on Friday, at Bucks County Council’s offices in Aylesbury. David Membury, of CFDG (Charity Finance Directors’ Group) attended representing the Third Sector. We attended to final details for the Spring National Conference (23rd April) and started planning for the Edinburgh event in earnest.

On Monday I was at France Telecom’s UK Research Laboratories, at Chiswick, to find out about their GPRS Wrist Bands and Healthcare proposition in particular, and Orange’s approach to fixed-mobile convergence in general. Mark Johnson, Chief Executive of Medical Mobile, was in our meeting, as well as a number of Orange personnel.

I was impressed by Medical Mobile’s Vega Wrist Band for supporting people with cognitive disorders. It uses both GPS and GSM for positioning, has a wireless battery recharge facility and customisable screen, which can therefore include clock functions or display photos of carers, for example, is waterproof and has very good audio communications performance. It seamlessly switches between RF communications and GPRS to provide least cost/ optimal communications and power management. It’s clear that other applications, such as monitoring lone visitors/ cautionary contacts, could benefit from the technology.

There was also a demonstration of fixed/ mobile integration via Wi-Fi, and in presentations and discussion a broad range of opportunities for further discussion and follow-up were apparent.

Steve Jones and I met Wan Lik Lee, Managing Director of Azeus, at Intellect’s offices to discuss potential partnership.

I returned to Direct House for, probably, my last meeting there – Newham ICT is moving to “Newham Dockside” (the new name for Building 1000) this week. I met Steven Rumble and Peter Smithson from PriceWaterhouseCoopers Assurance Division to discuss the local public sector’s approach to Information Assurance. PWC delivered the Poynter Report into the Data Loss at HMRC and has developed an approach to assessing and managing Information Assurance that it’s keen to extend to the local public sector, and we discussed the potential for working together.

Idle Thoughts...

2009-03-19T17:44:00.001Z

When driving to the office, yesterday, listening to The DirectGov ads, and looking at the posters while in traffic jams, it occurred to me that the only time I’m conscious of ever having used DirectGov is when I’ve renewed car tax or TV licences, in which cases I’ve followed links directly, and it really hasn’t mattered where the services were located.

Invariably, if I want to find something I know isn’t in my bookmarks or browser cache, I Google it – and can never remember having landed-up on a DirectGov site (although I sometimes land on Council sites). The same applies to Council sites. I would never go to them directly. Although I may be looking for local Council information, I’d invariably search for the place-name and subject I’m interested in; I don’t care where I get the answer from.

I’m sure I can’t be alone in this?

Socitm Insight’s website take-up service says that 26.85% of hits come from Google (1.75% from DirectGov) and 45.91% from previous visits, inferring that, already, only about a quarter of the usage comes from people who go directly to a site to search for information.

As a member of the Government domain names board, it’s started me wondering whether there’s really any raison d’être for our work. It really doesn’t matter how many websites there are, or what they are called, if citizens can find and access the services they are looking for?

With the number of trade stories predicting that services will increasingly be delivered from the Cloud growing steadily, it behoves us to consider the secure, joined-up Government journey on which we’ve embarked. The development of Government Connect with identity and authentication services on a Public Sector Network across Government logically means that the Cloud services we use will also be on the PSN – the “G-Cloud”, which must have significant implications for most suppliers’ planned market approach. Hopefully, too, this will provide a key session at the planned Government Connect/ Ocean/PSN Conference.

Good to be Alive

2009-03-18T23:02:00.000Z

Having abandoned my coat, for the first time this year, on Monday, the weather today, in London, made for a “great to be alive” day, so I took every opportunity to walk in the sunshine between meetings!

Last week, Graham Kennedy, of Alexoria, caught the tail-end of my presentation at the Socitm/ Intellect Supplier Forum, and subsequently asked to interview me for research he’s undertaking on the role of ICT in a downturn. As Graham agreed to present the results to Socitm Futures, I gladly agreed and we met, this morning, back at the Intellect offices.

I went on to the Church House Conference Centre, in Westminster, for a Microsoft Agreement Project Board meeting. Subject to resolution of final negotiating points, details of the proposals should be made available to members of the CIO Councils, which next meet at the beginning of April, for approval and the commencement of the sign-off process.

Then on to the CIPFA IT Panel, near Charing Cross. I joined the meeting during an OGC Presentation of the Gateway Review process. The Panel agreed to promote the approach, and the service for Local Government run by 4ps, and invited Socitm to join with it in this endeavour. I agreed, subject to board approval, and thought that it would be good to bolster resources available through the involvement of Local Government ICT colleagues as peer reviewers.

Through the rest of the meeting there were a number of areas of prospective collaboration. The IT panel agreed to endorse Socitm Insight’s report - What’s in a name? The practicalities of being a public sector CIO – and also to join with us in the initiative we’re developing with SOLACE. There was an overview of CIPFA’s online information resource, which includes guidance on ICT Management, which I expressed interest in reviewing with a view to endorsement.

There was some discussion of future areas of work, which revolved around performance management, procurement and contract management, especially in the light of the economic situation and the possibility of increased out-sourcing. It appeared we should seriously consider establishing something akin to the highly successful Socitm/ CIPFA Competition Advisory Service that existed in the days of Compulsory Competitive Tendering.

My final meeting was with Adrian at the Charing Cross Hotel. We finalised the short-list for the Head of Policy role, and agreed to organise an interview panel for a day of interviews – hopefully Friday 17th April. We plan to invite short-listed candidates for a social dinner on the evening before to get to know one another. Provided these arrangements can be confirmed, we’ll be writing to all candidates with decisions/ arrangements by Friday.

Evolution of the Internet

2009-03-17T21:46:00.000Z

Here is an interesting article on an EU funded research project into the evolution of the Internet. “The first problem will be scale…” So – all the more reason to ensure universal coverage, now, by proper (fibre) broadband network, then. Whilst some Telecoms companies are achieving some impressive results in squeezing more and more capacity out of copper, once fibre’s universally available the wonders of photonics will enable us to ramp-up the capacity by many orders of magnitude for years to come.

The report provides, in my view, a compelling vision of how the Internet will develop – and, I expect, more quickly than most of us might think - and builds-on a theme in ICT development that’s becoming ever more embedded – one that anticipates technology evolution that mimics nature.

I met with David Clayden, Chair of the CCitDG, and a Socitm Director, at his office in the Elephant & Castle HQ of the Salvation Army. We discussed LOLA, its meeting in Glasgow on 28th/ 29th June, and third sector support for an international campaign on social justice facilitated by ICT. Unsurprisingly, a number of our Third Sector colleagues have their own first-hand experience of tackling social inequity and running charitable projects in third-world regions. We hope, finally to launch a programme through the LOLA meeting, and also to use it to help develop an international stream for Socitm’s conference in Edinburgh (11th to 13th October) which, this year, is designated among LOLA members as its members’ international conference for the year.

We also discussed the need to develop our understanding of the different challenges faced by the different (government and third) sectors that we represent, and agreed it would be worth investing some time in sharing our agendas with a view to agreeing common policy and an initial action plan. It seemed that this might best be achieved in a small workshop linked to a Socitm National Advisory Council meeting.

Missed the Excitement!

2009-03-16T23:05:00.000Z

Apparently, I missed Posh & Becks, and accompanying paparazzi pandemonium, who showed-up at Claridges sometime after I had left the IRRV President’s lunch, on Friday.

We’ve got 10 excellent candidates for the Socitm Head of Policy role. The Board is reviewing submissions, and Adrian and I will finalise the shortlist and the approach to interviewing on Wednesday.

This morning I attended the Information Assurance Events Advisory Board. This is held “in camera” but it’s planned to agree outcomes that can be announced, and possible publication of minutes, from future meetings.

In the afternoon, I met with Jenny Newton, UK & Ireland CEO for Bull Information System, and Paul McDonald, who heads-up Public Sector engagement, to discuss Socitm and potential business partnership.

Pushing the Limits

2009-03-13T17:58:00.001Z

Peter Ryder, Steve Palmer and I teleconferenced about LOLA. The next LOLA meeting is in Glasgow on the 28th & 29th June. Additionally, each year a LOLA Member Conference is designated an international event, and this year it will be Socitm’s annual conference to be held in Edinburgh on 11th to 13th October. Steve will be attending the LOLA Conference as Socitm President (subject to AGM confirmation, of course) and we hope to have a UK third-sector speaker, on social equity. I’m meeting David Clayden on Tuesday, next week, and this will be on my agenda. We are also aiming to create an international stream in the Edinburgh Conference – to be discussed at our Events Group meeting, next Friday.

Later in the morning I was involved in another Teleconference, organised by Philip Littleavon. This involved maybe 20 people – from Local Authorities, the DWP, OGC, Cabinet Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Personally, I think it was stretching the capabilities of audio-conferencing a little, but it was nevertheless an excellent and positive discussion, which moves the prospect of pan-Government Information Assurance and Security Vision on considerably.

Philip is proposing a two-day conference on Ocean/ PSN (Public Sector Network) and common security infrastructure – extending the coverage of the Government Connect brand, which I wholeheartedly endorse, and was broadly supported by other participants in the discussion.

I had to duck-out of the discussion early, but I believe agreement will have been reached to develop the conference format and agenda electronically, and for a workshop then to agree upon objectives and detailed organisation. I’m glad to say that Local Government was well represented in the discussion, through Steve Palmer, Jos Creese, Dylan Roberts and Vic Freir, as well as me, and we all expressed willingness to play active parts in the planning and organisation.

I was invited to an IRRV (Institute of Revenues, Rating & Valuation) President’s Luncheon, along with about 20 other Society’s Presidents at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s. Very nice – and no agenda other than to network and enjoy ourselves! In fact, I underestimated the time required for this activity, and had booked a 3.00 appointment back at Direct House, so had to leave early. Julie Holden, the IRRV President, also keeps a Blog, and will be publishing photos from the lunch - of us wearing our red noses! Needless to say, I’ll link them here.

My appointment was with a representative of OGC Buying Solutions, to discuss the latest pricing proposals from Microsoft but, of course, I’m not allowed to talk about them. Sorry!

I’m now off to a Morgan Grenfell IT staff reunion at “The Windmill” in Tabernacle Street, where we used to hang-out quite a lot, for a drink in memory of Alan Constable.

Have a good weekend.

Hold-on to your Boarding Pass!

2009-03-12T21:07:00.001Z

A significant part of today’s Socitm Board Meeting, held at Hillingdon Council offices in Uxbridge, was given over to the presentation of our Auditor’s annual report. 2008 saw a considerable reduction in Socitm’s cost of sales and administrative expenses; the outturn position now looks like a surplus of around £12,000; (following a deficit of around £325,000 in 2007) after writing off bad debt. Unsurprisingly, interest earned on our bank balance was lower than the previous year – down from around £50,000 to £32,000 – and we were advised that we need to manage our treasury better. In the current environment, we should be looking to maximise returns by long-term investment (of our cash reserves) in the money market. We noted that the Society again made an operating loss if we exclude interest received.

Christine presented, and we discussed, a good deal of other advice on diverse matters, such as redundancy policy, cash reserves policy, risk analysis procedures, the register of interests and fraud policy. Much of this was related to her update on the 2009 Companies Act, from which it’s clear that we must review our articles of association.

We learned that Socitm is due monies for work it undertook on an EU funded iSCAN project. Unfortunately, some expenditure cannot be reclaimed. As we had not kept the boarding pass for a flight made in connection with the project, although we had the invoice and receipt for the airfare, the EU refused payment – even ‘though the official refusing payment had met our representative at the airport, and could therefore personally vouch for the fact that the flight was undertaken!

Some other noteworthy items were:

We received, and agreed, a paper proposing the formation of a web professionals’ community within Socitm, developed following a workshop with Web Managers from across Government and the third sector and commended by the Membership Board.
We agreed that the expressions of interest for the London-based Policy role will be reviewed online and that Adrian and I will complete the recruitment process in accordance with the Board’s guidance. It was also clarified that this will initially be a 12 month contract.
We reviewed progress on the Business Partnership proposals. Following the issuance of a draft opportunity / value matrix, some very strong interest has been registered, and the Commercial Board was authorised to complete some initial partnerships.
Following the implementation of our new CRM, Socitm officers have been raving about the new facilities and functionality that’s now available. The CMS is now being prioritised.
Around 70 bookings for the Spring National Conference have now been received (excluding those involved in running the conference). We are aiming for at least double that number of delegates, and about to commence marketing proper, using the CRM functionality that’s now available to send an electronic “flyer” to members.
We are rescheduling all board meetings to improve the timing and business process flow. With a few exceptions, this year, the Membership Board will be on the second Wednesday of each month, the Commercial Board will be on the third Wednesday and main board meetings will be on last Wednesdays.

Further information will be in this month’s President’s Report, due by the end of next week.

Public Sector IT in a Downturn

2009-03-11T23:49:00.004Z

This morning I attended the Intellect-Socitm Supplier Forum, held at Intellect’s offices on Russell Square. The session examined the main issues facing local government and how the current economic climate will impact the the local public sector market market in 2009.

What role/potential is there for IT to have a positive impact for local authorities in 2009 and how do we identify and promote these potential areas?
How are the current and proposed plans for 2009 affected by the tough financial situation facing local authorities? I.e. given the current financial constraints will local authorities continue to focus on implementing personalised/citizen centric services and joined-up networks such as EAS and PSN etc

Steve Palmer and I presented our views. Between us, I think we covered a lot of ground in sessions that complemented one another. I emphasised shared infrastructure, whereas Steve majored on new service models and issues such as licensing. The Forum is run under Chatham House rules, but if there’s a version of the minutes that can be published outside the Forum’s membership, I’ll signpost it here.

Steve, Adrian, who also attended the Supplier Forum, and I hurried on to a Socitm Membership Board meeting at Camden Town Hall.

We reviewed progress in the development of core membership principles. Some are becoming well-embedded, such as “one member, one vote”. Others are “work in progress”. An interim measure was to reserve eligibility for election to the Presidential Team to serving IT Heads in Local Government. We discussed how to introduce more egalitarian eligibility criteria. A suggestion was for one based on having achieved a minimum number of years’ continuous membership of the Society – five, say. If such a criterion were agreed, it could be announced for implementation (say) five years hence. We aim to finalise core principles by October (Conference time) and will be further consulting members in the meantime.

I think I may previously have mentioned my intention to consult all regional chairs on their requirements for support of regional activities from corporate Socitm? Following a steer from today’s meeting, I’ll also be discussing the Society’s value proposition, and content of a proposed corporate membership package.

At our next meeting it’s planned to discuss work completed on these issues, and feedback, with a view to how to prioritise and deliver the agreed objectives – what’s realistic and practical, and by when.

We also agreed work to be undertaken on a Communications Plan – What, How, To Whom, When etc, and agreed feedback on a Government consultation on “fair access to professions” and a PARN (Professional Associations Research Network) consultation on Societies’ developmental and membership requirements in the next 10 years!

Two Steps Back?

2009-03-10T23:29:00.000Z

On Monday I missed the Socitm Futures meeting, as I took leave for my Father-in-Law’s funeral. However, Adrian told me that the meeting was excellent, and Martin Ferguson played a crucial role in facilitating a very productive session. I’ll aim to feature this in the next President’s report.

I spent Tuesday on a return trip to Barnsley, where I met with the Council’s European and Regional Strategy Officer, and the Head of Information Strategy, to discuss the Digital South Yorkshire Partnership (covering Barnsley, Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster) and potential synergies with Newham’s Telecommunications Convergence programme. Last October a Sporting and Cultural Development Partnership was launched between Barnsley Metropolitan Council and the London Borough of Newham, which provided the context for our productive meeting. We agreed outline proposals for the establishment of a formal liaison mechanism for sharing information and experiences, potential joint development/ technology transfer/ asset reuse, and strategy development, which would be in both our interests.

Among the positive initiatives supporting greater joining up and co-operation between the Central and Local public sectors, last year, was the appointment of Kevin Hayes to lead Central-Local Government liaison on Information Assurance matters, so I was surprised and disappointed to hear from Kevin, yesterday, that early termination of this role had been decided. I’ve replied to Kevin, protesting the decision, which is short-sighted and comes at a time when we are just starting to see the fruits of Kevin’s work in a dawning realisation of the importance of pan-Government Security and Information Assurance policy and infrastructure. I fear that the early discontinuance of this role – at a time when there’s intense pressure on everyone to deliver efficiency savings, will be seized on as a further opportunity to pare back activities to a minimum - setting us right back where we started.

Inaction is not an option.

2009-03-06T22:19:00.001Z

In continuing consideration of ICT and the recession, two further articles caught my eye. Alcatel-Lucent CEO, Ben Verwaayen, spoke of the unique opportunity we have to reshape companies and processes and build a new digitally enabled future. A shift towards all-IP networks and software as a service lies at the heart of this new world order, he said. At the same (Alcatel-Lucent 2009 Enterprise) event Gartner's senior VP of research, Peter Sondergaard, said inaction is not an option in the current economic climate - and any business putting its head in the sand waiting for the storm to blow over will simply "suffocate". Meantime, Computing’s Martin Courtney worries, as I do, about what’s holding up IPv6. I really do think now’s the time to focus on really exploiting ICT for efficiency, to ensure we don’t lose ground on transformational government (just as we’re moving beyond hype and lip-service to actual joining-up) and to facilitate and sustain community cohesion through to the recovery.

Shane and I, together with Steria’s Legal Director, consulted a Barrister at his Lincoln’s Inn Chambers on matters related to Caboodle’s winding-up.

The Socitm London Committee met in the afternoon. I attended a pre-meeting with Geoff and a few other Members to consider how the region should develop to encompass the Society’s new remit, including aspects such as organisation, agenda and recruitment.

2e2 will be sponsoring the next regional meeting, at the House of Lords, as they did a year ago. Then, they presented on “Generation Y”; this time they aim to update and develop that theme to what they are calling “Enterprise 2.0”. Technology supporting the modern Councillor will also be on the agenda, along with “Connected London”. There will also be third sector input on senior citizen engagement.

We also discussed Capital Ambition plans for benchmarking using the Socitm service, but with a workshop to further develop an outcome based specification of requirements. i.e. Benchmarking business utilisation of ICT.

Steve Pennant advised us that the London 101 project has been cancelled, but the out-of-hours service has now gone live in a number of boroughs.

What's in a name?

2009-03-05T23:03:00.000Z

A new Socitm Insight report - What’s in a name? The practicalities of being a public sector CIO – is published today. I’m pleased to commend the report, which further develops our push for a more confident, assertive ICT profession that challenges our businesses to use ICT services and infrastructure effectively.

It’s increasingly apparent that some of our regions are struggling to resource the organisation and management of their local events. The Socitm Board will be discussing this, next week, with a view to agreeing what support can be offered from the centre. In the remaining weeks of my Presidency I’m also aiming to meet with regional chairs to gain direct feedback on ways in which the Society can better support them.

Glyn Moody accepted my invitation, last Friday, to meet. He actually accepted it on Monday, but I didn’t realise because his invitation went into my junk e-mail. Unintended, I promise! Glyn says that’s OK because, as a journalist, he is used to being filed under “junk”! We’re arranging to meet and will keep you briefed.

Taking a long, hard look at ourselves!

2009-03-04T23:26:00.000Z

Shey Cobley hosted a Socitm workshop, at Oxford Town Hall, to consider how the Society can more effectively support the broader objectives it set itself in the remit agreed at October’s EGM – “to be the professional association for all people working in ICT and related disciplines in the public and third sectors…” - particularly young professionals. Adrian Hancock, David Houston, Bernard Gudgin, Steve Jones, David Clayden and I, were assisted by Shey (Oxford City Council) Frances Kettleday (Cambridgeshire) Alex Birtwell (Hyndburn BC) and also Vicky Sargent and Elaine Davis.

Our failure to engage effectively, to date, was exemplified, this week when, following the publication of the latest “Better Connected” report, for the most part, the newly changed username and password for the Socitm Insight pages were not passed on by Socitm Lead Members to the very people who needed them – the web professionals.

We covered quite a lot of ground, in a very productive meeting, but two clear priorities were in establishing mentoring facilities for members – both peer mentoring and mentoring by more experienced people – and supporting professional development. The latter is being worked-on through our Membership Board but, today’s discussion served to reinforce the urgency of this work. Other issues, such as the way we welcome and support new members, were linked to these requirements.

A lot of the discussion was of facilitating the involvement of younger and less senior professionals who, generally, don’t have the same access to budget or time to attend formal meetings. Also, why is it that their managers always get to don dinner-suits to attend formal events to receive the awards their staff have earned?! This also chimed with senior management/ executive perceptions (misperceptions) and assumptions of what’s involved in roles (such as web development), which also embraced some apparently sexist attitudes.

We need to look again at some of the data Socitm has about its own events and services. Is the attendance at our events as representative of the people we want to attract as we think it is, and are the conclusions we draw from surveys well-founded, or are outcomes skewed because of undue influence of the “Old Guard”?

We also covered communications – viral marketing, topics/ workshops – time-limited panels to brainstorm and move-on rather than arrangements “set in stone”, personal responsibility/ motivation for career development and other issues including, of course, the need to make better use of the web/ technology.

Full notes of the meeting will be circulated among meeting participants, with suggested actions arising, and we are aiming to develop a detailed action plan for agreement at the next National Advisory Council, which is on 29th April. A “quick win” should be in establishing member mentoring facilities.

As always, I’ll be glad to receive any suggestions and comments.

Cull or Cure

2009-03-03T18:20:00.001Z

At next week’s Intellect-Socitm Local Government Supplier Form, I’m presenting a session on public sector use of ICT in the current economic climate. Patrick Smith, from IBM, is presenting the view from the private sector. So I’ve done a fair bit of reading of others’ views in preparation. It’s becoming ever clearer that the recession in the UK is going to be deep and prolonged, as Steve Bundred’s article in Friday’s Times made clear. All the same, I’m not at all convinced that Gartner’s suggested response is the right one. Reliability, now, is everything; minor disruption and outages cause disproportionate loss of productivity and, worse still, adversely impact confidence at a time when ICT should be relied upon to enable greater business efficiency. I think Socitm’s recently published Technology Trends report stands-up very well, although it was completed before the “Credit Crunch” had really taken hold. Anyhow, I’ll look forward to reporting the conclusions of next week’s meeting.

Apart from a few hours out to attend the funeral of a not long retired former Newham ICT colleague, I’ve had my head down, mostly in preparing for upcoming meetings, for the last two days. It doesn’t sound like much, I admit, but still my head’s spinning – so I’m off to get some fresh air!

Courting Controversy...

2009-02-27T16:54:00.004Z

Oh dear. I’m getting myself into all sorts of bother following my Blog entry on “Open Sauce”!

Before I go further, I should make clear, perhaps belatedly, that I am stating my personal opinion, which does not in any way represent Socitm policy.

A lot of the comments I receive are semi-literate, anonymous insults, which are easily dismissed and likely to do their authors more harm than they do me - although I do try to find the time to provide reasoned responses. However, when someone who is clearly intelligent, is prepared to be identified and stands behind well-reasoned arguments, I really have to take notice.

…And if someone as intelligent as Glyn Moody doesn’t understand that I’m trying to poke fun at myself in a blog entry entitled “Open Sauce”, as in having the cheek to challenge some of the assertions around so called Open Source, then I accept that’s down to me trying to be too clever by half. I am, ‘though, disappointed that he should think I “have such distaste for the concept that (I) can’t bring (myself) even to write the words without sanitising them between quotation marks”. Actually, I think some of Glyn’s respondents have caught the sense of what I was trying to say by suggesting other terms, such as “free software”, or “software freedom”.

I do stand by my comment that what many people mean is “anything but Microsoft” and I’m sure that Glyn, in his heart of hearts, knows that there are a lot of people who see Microsoft as the devil incarnate, and “Open Source” as a catch-all to describe the battle for redemption! Yes – I know that the term “Open Source” is clearly defined, but it’s constantly misused, and that’s the point. I also think Glyn makes my point for me when talking about “you license it, just like you license proprietary software”. (I know your, packaged, licensed Open Source-derived software includes a spell-checker, Glyn, but you missed the typo - propretary!!) As he points-out, Microsoft itself uses Open Source, but my view is that once you’ve turned-it into a commercial product, the term is no longer appropriate.

However, when it comes to my assertion that “Open Source software development… lags proprietary development”, I have to put my hands-up; fair cop! I did kind of pre-qualify my remarks by implying I was cream-crackered as I made them, ‘though. Those who know me know that I push myself very hard – perhaps too hard - and I probably should have taken more time for a better considered response.

I can’t argue with Glyn’s examples of innovation based-upon Open Source, so my statement was clearly wrong (as I also admitted to ZDNet, today) but I do know that there’ve been occasions when I’ve wanted products that Open Source software products did not support. The Tablet PC is one that comes to mind, although I’m sure it’s now supported; (I haven’t checked lately.) This tele-presence thing is quite important, in my view. It makes so much difference for teams or groups of people working in disparate locations and work-styles. It’s really great for real-time collaboration.

Anyway, we could argue over this for ever more. What I propose is that Glyn and I meet-up and I’ll take Glyn through the requirements I have, as a CIO, for ICT infrastructure to support an organisation like Newham Council. I’ll be completely open about the products we use, the costs and the benefits achieved, which he’ll be able to see for himself. Glyn, then, can take me through how I could achieve as much at the same or a lesser cost using “Open Source” products, and we’ll both publish the results.

I’ll freely admit that I’m no technician, so I will need a technical expert to support me, and of course agree that Glyn can be similarly supported. If you are up for it, Glyn, give me a call on Monday, and we’ll agree a date for our first meeting.

I worked from home, today, and, when I wasn’t responding to Blog comments, spent several hours in ‘phone calls on Socitm affairs, using ICT as an efficiency-enabler in the depression and executive partnership, and of course in dealing with correspondence.

Have a great weekend.

Getting more joined-up

2009-02-26T23:22:00.001Z

This morning’s Socitm London branch meeting was held at the Mermaid Conference Centre, at Blackfriars. I was pleased to see great support from central Government colleagues - with updates from OGC Buying Solutions on the Microsoft UK Public Sector Licensing project, the DWP on Government Connect and DCSF on Employee Authentication Services. Geoff Connell (now Chair of the London branch – keep it in the “family”!) gave a short update on the Public Sector Mobile Portal http://mynewham.mobi (designed for viewing on your ‘phone) and I gave my Socitm update. The meeting finished with a great presentation from Ian Brooks of HP, today’s sponsor, “Innovation - from chip to chiller and beyond”, followed by lunch. Presentations will be on the Socitm website.

After lunch, I attended an EAS Board Meeting at the Sanctuary Buildings in Westminster. The main discussion was of the implementation strategy, different options for establishing the Registration Authority and the Operating Model. The fact that it’s accepted that EAS will now support multiple applications - initially Contact Point, then access to the DWP Customer Information System for benefits processing, then others - undoubtedly complicates the programme, not least from financial and delivery perspectives, but it’s great that we are now confronting these issues; discussion of pan-Government security is gaining traction.

Although John Skipper, in his update to the London Socitm meeting, said that remote access through the GC infrastructure will not initially be supported by EAS, we were told that remote access trials are being undertaken.

It appears that this year’s T-Government report will be delayed, which brings additional opportunities to ensure that the pan-Government security vision is developed for that report.

Open Sauce...

2009-02-25T22:44:00.005Z

I’d planned to spend yesterday and today at the CMA Conference, held at The Congress Centre in Great Russell Street but, for a variety of reasons, didn’t get there until today’s morning coffee break.

There was some work to do on weightings and tolerances for the Microsoft software procurement and in reviewing bids for the GC Benefits Realisation fund, besides which my correspondence backlog had gone over a week again.

Geoff, Richard and I met with Newham’s Head of Procurement to discuss and agree our procurement approach for the NTC network commercialisation. We decided upon a negotiated competition, in preparation for which we’ll develop our market analysis, finalise technical options and advertise for proposals to meet desired outcomes based on sale of lease of network.

At one point yesterday, I found myself talking on the ‘phone to Adrian, who was in a storage room at Socitm’s Northampton offices, surrounded by mounds of reports, minutes and other documentation dating back, probably, to the formation of the Society. Clearly, another project looms; we’ll need to sort-out retention policies and Electronic Document Records management for the Society, but it also occurred to us that we need an Archivist to document Socitm’s history, before disposing of everything.

After having popped-in to a Newham colleague’s Farewell drinks do in Stratford, I went on to The Chemistry Club, at Sartoria. Francis Maude was the speaker.

Today (Wednesday) morning, the oft-postponed GC Benefits Realisation Fund Assessment Teleconference was held. The IDeA did an excellent job in reviewing and documenting the bids, of which there were 193, for our consideration. Six were agreed, unaltered, for funding, and a further four were agreed, but at less than was applied for. It was agreed that a further twelve required further information & evaluation. Forty-six of the bids were for the Libra project (for youth offending – “topped and tailed” for different YOTs). It was also agreed the IDeA should discuss some funding, probably of a pilot.

The Wednesday morning CMA Conference networking break was followed by a session entitled “Real Strategies for “Hyper Connectivity”. I felt like I’d entered a time-warp. It seemed to me that speakers wanted to hold back the tide; there was a reluctance to recognise that convergence is here; the words said “sweat your assets”, but I was pretty sure they meant “help us to continue to milk our sunk investments, rather than deploying the infrastructure you really need”; technical solutions to managing limited bandwidth to stop users gobbling it for Internet radio were advised, rather than recognising the fundamental cultural and management shift required for anytime, anywhere working enabled by Unified Communications.

Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, spoke a good deal of sense, and clearly knew his subject. I liked his analogy of the Internet as the digital equivalent of previous trade routes. He did, however, cause some consternation by saying, as part of the answer to a question, that “Nortel had withdrawn as a first tier 2012 sponsor”. After lunch and, I imagine, some feverish checking, it was clarified that this most certainly was not the case!

The session following lunch – “The future… moves changes and opportunities” – was as refreshing as the one before lunch was depressing. Mark Blowers, from Butler Group, did a commendably succinct introduction to the session, comparing our development of network infrastructure to the Winchester Building.

Bob Falconer, CEO of Gamma Telecom, talked about systemic problems in the industry – over-promising, under-delivering, costs of change, back-loaded costs etc, and suggested an alternative approach to procurement, and his company’s white label service.

Stuart Hill, Vice President and Director of BT’s London 2012 delivery programme, gave a truly inspiring presentation about BT’s approach, as the Tier One Telecoms Sponsor. “Reliability ahead of heroes”, “Treat every amber as red”.

Kevin Russell, CEO of “3” Mobile highlighted some of the absurdities in mobile data regulation and pricing, and illustrated the major daily evening peak in mobile data traffic that’s apparently down to home use.

You may have seen today’s announcement of new Government Policy on Open Source software. A number of journalists have been enquiring after my views!

Well, I’ve had a couple of long days so these aren’t fully thought-through, but my more-or-less “off the cuff” reactions are:

Open Standards are definitely required.

I don’t like the term “Open Source”. It’s misleading; what many people mean is “anything but Microsoft”; few businesses actually use open source directly – they buy software derived from open source that has been commercially packaged and sold with support, which, in practice, is little different to licensed software.

Nevertheless, competition is great for keeping suppliers focussed on delivering customer value, and “Open Source” has certainly played its part.

All the same, software is only one part of the Total Cost of Ownership equation; don’t consider it in isolation, but as part of the full TCO and lifecycle costs.

“Open Source” software development, in my experience, lags proprietary development by several years. I don’t think we could achieve the anytime, anywhere fixed and mobile infrastructure with tele-presence we require, now, for flexible and new ways of working using only Open Source.

I agree with reuse, and it’s a very significant factor in the Microsoft Public Sector software licensing project I’m involved in (and not allowed to talk about).

If it works for you – fine. I wouldn’t rule-out so-called “Open Source”; Newham has used it for some applications since the time it did its deal with Microsoft (probably the first UK public sector procurement of Microsoft as a supplier) and continues to do so.

Of Commerce & the Credit Crunch

2009-02-23T22:55:00.001Z

Socitm’s Commercial Board met today. Its terms of reference will be published, this week, in the Members’ area of the website, but we agreed that minutes of meetings will not be published. Although we are absolutely committed to the greatest possible transparency in the conduct of the Society’s business, I’m sure you can appreciate that, by its very nature, much of the Commercial Board’s business is bound to be commercially sensitive. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to provide high level reports here.

We discussed a number of aspects of the Socitm Insight Service. Negotiation of the contractual relationship and a performance management regime are at an advanced stage. Martin tabled a short paper concerning the need to review the strategic direction of the service over the next few years, and we’ve agreed to work on this ahead of the next meeting.

A particular discussion point concerned the development of the Supplier Index, and we saw opportunities to link to Government procurement initiatives and build closer links with the RIEPs. There’ll be a workshop to develop this particular development.

Socitm Insight is arranging forums in London (8th April) and Manchester (19th April) to consider IT’s role and response to the credit crunch. The morning will be for suppliers and the afternoon for public sector members.

We also considered a proposal from Elaine, which resulted from the recent meeting with Adrian and I. As I mentioned, last week, this focuses on “quick fixes”. The meeting was supportive, and agreed the proposal subject to a couple of issues of detail, which Adrian was empowered to conclude.

The Weekend Beckons

2009-02-20T17:09:00.001Z

Adrian and I met yesterday (Thursday) with Elaine at Intellect’s Russell Square offices to discuss Socitm commercial development, marketing, branding and our image/ proposition. She took us through a range of “quick fix” issues, such as management of the core brand, marketing and membership collateral, sales training, weekly bulletins, corporate service bundles and web updating, tidy-up and clarity. Our discussion was hugely enjoyable, and I felt not a little encouraged. We agreed that Elaine will write-up the agreed proposals to take to Monday’s Commercial Board.

Today (Friday) I’ve finished the latest President’s Report, drafted an article for a feature in www.parliamentarybrief.com , skimmed through a draft of Better Connected 2009 and done a bit of work on potential business partnerships in preparation for Monday’s Commercial Board. I’m also more or less up-to-date with correspondence.

Have a good weekend.

Not a Laughing Matter

2009-02-18T18:15:00.001Z

I can’t talk about today’s Microsoft Project Board Workshop on weightings and tolerances, so I’ll mention the announcement of agreement between Red Hat and Microsoft to build better interoperability and to provide co-ordinated technical support for customers, instead. This sounds-like good news, to me. It doesn’t mention Open Source, although, open source software that’s packaged and supported by a vendor is frequently referred to us such. It will be interesting to see the response.

The other story to catch my eye, today, was this one about “application anarchy that eats bandwidth”. My personal view has always been that such stories have much to do with general management; wasting time with ICT is no different from wasting time gazing out of the window, reading your horoscope, or chatting at the water fountain. However, now it’s also about fundamental advances in our use of ICT, which has become pervasive, is core business for everyone and reliant on an appropriate culture of shared understanding and responsibility. Although the author of this survey has a vested interest in raising awareness of potential problems that his organisation can help to address – “the technology is available from us and….” – he is quite right to point-out that the world has moved on, and that’s something we all need to recognise.

I asked a management colleague for his view, and concur with his assertion that “whilst many (requirements) relate to specific security technology, a great deal of the organisation’s information security is dependent on clear Human Resources policy and processes, and their effective implementation and enforcement. ICT is an integral part of almost everyone’s ‘day-job’ and everyone must take responsibility, and be accountable for their part in securing the organisation’s information. It’s essential that policies and processes are clear, well communicated, and understood by all”.

“No CoCo. No housing benefit data. No joke.” says the headline, “especially if you are a citizen dependent on a housing benefit service”, it might have added - and, whilst Authorities prevented from accessing the DWP’s CIS system, won’t be able to process benefits, neither will the DWP be able to collect their benefit data and do its job, so they’ll both look silly. It’s better by far that we recognise our shared responsibility to make Government Connect a success. Most Local Authorities have done a magnificent job in working to achieve CoCo compliance in the last six months, despite a poorly planned initial programme that followed years of repeated false starts and fruitless activity.

Socitm is following-up the communications it has received about problems experienced, but we urge any Authorities that have not yet reported their status to do so – to anna.smith3@dwp.gsi.gov.uk (even if already advised to the Account Manager) - without delay. Codes of Connection should be submitted to GCtech.team@dwp.gsi.gov.uk, (even if already given to the Account Manager).

Information is Power... (Francis Bacon)

2009-02-17T18:48:00.001Z

Richard Quarrell and I met, as planned, to discuss “Psiphon”. I think this project could be very important, but we need to do some testing and assessment to establish that’s the case. The idea is to automate the creation of organisations’ Information Asset Registers, facilitating reuse of information and supporting the creation of a market for public information. If this can be got off the ground now, it will be very timely since, as previously reported, the “Power of Information” Taskforce report is being published in the spring, and Richard Allan will be speaking on this at the Socitm National Conference on 23rd April.

I agreed that Socitm would help to recruit volunteers to form a Reference Group, which Newham is prepared to Chair, to help refine the design and testing requirements.

On Tuesday, I spoke in the “Transformation & the Role of Technology” stream, chaired by Steve Palmer, at Osney Media’s Public Sector Transformation Summit at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Hyde Park. Glyn Evans followed me, and we both joined a panel with other speakers to round off the morning programme.

Unfortunately, the three of us missed the Plenary sessions because we were meeting, in the Hotel Lobby, with Adrian Hancock and John Serle, to ensure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet concerning the ways in which the National Advisory Council (chaired by John) and Socitm Futures (chaired by Glyn) work together, and their respective remits. I’ll say a little more about this in the President’s Report that I’m currently working on. However, it has been agreed that the March 9th Socitm Futures meeting will be a Workshop to review the top two Policy Priorities – Information Management / Assurance/ Resilience, and pan-Government Security Vision – with the aim of agreeing objectives, methodology, outputs/ products and the delivery plan for each. Martin Ferguson has agreed to facilitate.

Mike Simons, the Editor of ComputerWorldUK, sent me a note containing this link, which he thought I’d be interested in. I have to confess that this story about the proposed “Coroners and Justice Bill” had passed me by, but I am now not only interested, but quite alarmed at what seems to be being proposed. The BCS seems to have done a good job in producing an emphatic response, which I believe Socitm would want to support.

There is a commentary on the bill, which proposes major amendments to the Data Protection Act, and may override any other existing legislation that impedes its intention, at http://www.amberhawk.com/uploads/datasharing%20explain_website.pdf Of course, there will be other views and perspectives that I’ll gladly reflect here, but this does seem a subject that deserves our attention.

One Small Step...

2009-02-13T18:10:00.001Z

The PSF’s Ian Cuddy told me he’s had a letter from the Cabinet Office saying that the Central CIO and CTO Council meetings are going, henceforth, to publish the minutes of their meetings. Great stuff and cheering news following experience reported earlier this week! PSF started a bit of a campaign for transparency, last month, citing Socitm’s stewardship of the Local CIO Council as an exemplar.

Today’s scheduled Government Connect Benefits Realisation Awards Ratification Committee was again postponed.

Philip Littleavon wrote, today, to GC Board members acknowledging that “there has been a fair amount of discussion and concern about the recent batch of letters to local authorities”. As he and Paul Howarth (Head of the DWP Housing Strategy Division) now see it, key issues going forward are:

“Paul & I to agree and communicate a clear documented message with respect to the DWP data access policy defining what authorities should do if they feel they will not achieve compliance by 31 March. Also to describe the position if compliance is achieved by 31 March, but the live configuration process extends beyond this date.
“It is now unlikely further bulk communications will be necessary, but GC will look to work closely with the LGA / Socitm / IDeA to help with authorities we perceive to be at risk or not engaging sufficiently well. It is important that all discussions are closely coordinated with Anna Smith to ensure clarity and coordination.”

The main theme in response to Socitm’s broadcast asking for evidence of inappropriate support from GC was of contradictions between advice provided by the Account Managers and the content of the letters. Authorities have considered the Account Managers their main points of contact, and assumed any information provided to them was shared with the team and that, on the other hand, the Account Managers spoke for the Team, and their advice could be relied upon. This doesn’t seem unreasonable; otherwise why set-up accounts management arrangements? I hope, therefore, that Philip is communicating these messages to his Account Support people.

Have a good weekend.

Investing in our future...

2009-02-12T23:21:00.000Z

Key discussion at today’s Socitm Board meeting, held at Camden Town Hall, concerned our need to invest in additional resources. This was prefaced by consideration of an interim report on the level of financial reserves that the Society should retain. The reserves provide a buffer to ensure the Society can remain solvent and affect an orderly winding-up in case of adversity. This is a bit of a simplification but a very cautious approach would be to retain sufficient cash to enable service delivery for a year with no income, and an orderly winding-up of business. We took the view that a sensible risk posture would be to provide for 6 months’ operation, recognising that a sudden and complete cessation of income would be quite unlikely.

The main investment proposals are in appointing a Commercial & Business Development Director (working title) and a London-based Head of Policy. The former role is to manage business partnerships and oversight of commercial operations, generating revenue for member services and, therefore, more than self-funding. Directors approved, in principle. The final decision will be made by the Commercial Board on 23rd February. The Policy role is required to maintain and develop dialogue with key stakeholders (especially in Government) and to facilitate appropriate policy development through Socitm Futures. This will cover some of the role that I’ve been undertaking, as I return to my “day job”. Directors approved the policy role initially on a contract basis, with a review after six months, and accepted that this could be funded by reserves, with an expectation that funding would be provided by commercial income in the longer term. Although the Board recognises that much of the Society’s work will be undertaken by paid resources, it re-emphasised its need for active support from serving ICT professionals, whose experience cannot be substituted.

Other financial considerations, today, were in reviewing and formalising current public relations, marketing and sales support – remaining areas where we don’t have up-to-date contracts.

Other noteworthy items of discussion were:

The problems with our financial management system (Iris) have been overcome. It’s now integrated with the new CRM, and is just going fully “live”.
The focus, now, is in getting the new CMS operational. In order to secure early benefits the initial process, now, will be “migration, rather than transformation”.
We are implementing a recommendation from our recent Director Training course – a register of hospitality/ gifts received.
For the first time, our annual accounts will include a detailed annual report, which is nearing completion.
The National Spring Conference is shaping-up well. The AGM report will feature developments in Member Services.
The Member Services Board would like the NAC to form a Reference Group of volunteers to consider membership applications, appeals etc.

I hope to publish the next President’s Report by the end of next week.

Planning IA09

2009-02-11T22:04:00.002Z

I've removed the notes of my attendance at an IAEAB (Information Assurance Events Advisory Board) meeting, at the request of the Chair. He advised that the content is privileged information. I am very sorry for any embarrassment caused, but was not advised of its confidentiality, and none of the documentation discussed was marked as confidential.

I'm bemused at this development, which I hope to meet with the Chair to discuss. I believe I have a duty as a Socitm representative to report my activities on its behalf (and that as a CIO I have similar responsibilities as a public servant). Whilst there will always be occasions when we cannot divulge information that may compromise requirements such as commercial discussions or security, I did not think that any of these applied. On the other hand, it was clear that there is a real need to engender appreciation of and active support for effective Government Information Assurance.

2009-02-11T08:12:00.002Z

A few updates from me. Last week I spoke on behalf of the Society at the Transformational Government event in Westminster. It was very well attended considering the weather and I used the opportunity to talk about avoidable contact as well as a number of "CIO role" issues. Plugs for Socitm's Channel Value Benchmarking and Professionalism work duly achieved!

On Tuesday of this week I met Philip Littleavon and Simon Norbury and, although I haven't yet discussed how/who/when with Richard, I want to make sure that we don't lose focus or momentum on this. I know that locally where I work we were a bit upset by the tone of some contact from GC but we see the worth of finally getting everyone linked as a start to building the linkages across the public sector that can help enable the transformation agenda. The Society will, amongst other roles, continue to be a "critical friend" to the programme but it is in all of our longer term interests to make this happen. There is no doubt that Philip and Simon want Socitm to succeed and our discussions were both positive and constructive.

The GC work also raises an important issue for us as a Society however. In every area where we want to have influence it is important to show to others the Society's worth in being involved at the earliest stages of policy and initiatives development. For too long we have been on the back foot and commenting on other people's (particularly central government) ideas and proposals rather than being in there help shaping them in ways that we can work with and that make sense locally. Your Board will be considering how we make sure this happens. I know that GC doesn't apply to many of our members but early engagement regardless of where we are geographically located and who our local, regional or national government is has to be worth pursuing vigorously.

Work is also progressing on the detail and logistics of the 1 day national event on 23rd April. It will be a good day and we have secured Tony Travers and former MP Richard Allan as two of our headline "acts". With a mix of case studies and major strategic issues it will be both informative and participative and I urge members to support it. On the day we will also be holding the Society's AGM including any necessary elections. Be there, have your say and use your vote.

Socitm Board is tomorrow as I write this but next Tuesday gives me my opportunity to "get my own back". I'm chairing a worksstream at an event that features its first 2 speakers as our own Richard Steel and Glyn Evans.

Steve P

Connections

2009-02-10T21:16:00.003Z

On Monday I chaired a sickness absence Hearing at Newham Town Hall, following which I returned home to work.

Three news articles interested me because of the different perceptions of ICT they reflect. Whilst there’s a view that flexible working enabled by ICT proved its worth in last week’s winter storms and resultant transport disruption, and a majority of public sector employees believe that ICT can help drive down costs, CIOs believe that businesses are ignoring the potential benefits of high-performance networks, and (because?) they have only a middling influence on business strategy. Together, these represent a fair summary of the state of our art, in my view, and draw attention to the key areas in which we need to develop our skills.

Socitm has now received a number of responses to its broadcast about the Government Connect letters that were recently sent to many Authorities concerning CoCo compliance progress. Thanks to all respondents. Some have expressed anger and frustration - which we will be discussing with the team - and one plaudit, was received. Additionally, Philip Littleavon (Programme Director) has replied to a note of mine as follows. (Reproduced with Philip’s permission.)

“We have had a mixed response to the last (Jan 30) letter, but not all (or majority) bad. Roughly 130 responses received out of about 180 requested. Of those that responded about 15 could be categorised as "very disappointed.." and we've said sorry where appropriate, but all of these authorities are doing quite well. The majority were OK and we have had a few plaudits as well. Within the 130 there are a handful that are clearly at risk of not achieving compliance on time.

“Whilst accepting that a few feathers have been ruffled and that we clearly got some facts wrong (eg., some lost responses to the 21 November mailing) the process has moved us on enormously. The acceleration in progress we have experienced is incredible. Currently receiving c. 40 CoCo updates per day!

“We are still collating and analysing, but I have concerns in a couple of areas.

1. Those that did not respond (c.50)
2. Those that did not respond to the previous mailing (c.11). These (on paper) have made least progress.

“We will need to keep working on these Councils until a clear statement emerges. Of course we risk more annoyance.”

We will respond to all the Authorities that contacted us letting them know what action is taken.

On Tuesday, with James Lee and Ian Tomson-Smith of SNT Consulting, Richard Carde and I had back-to-back meetings with Orange and TfL.

We met Bob Pisolkar, Orange’s Public Sector Divisional Business Manager, and Sean Harney, Business Development Manager, to discuss engagement in related areas that include a technology roadmap workshop, commercialisation and market intelligence.

Vince Tooke, from TfL joined us to discuss PSMP project progress and how we address issues such as Programme Governance, Marketing and PR, development priorities and exemplification of a standard business case. We also reviewed related work on the network infrastructure and Data Centre.

A Daytrip to Belfast

2009-02-08T10:39:00.003Z

It seemed strange, on a wintry Friday morning, parking at Gatwick’s “Summer Special Parking” for my flight to Belfast to attend the Socitm Northern Ireland Regional Meeting, but, at £5.50 for the day, it offered the cheapest deal.

I arrived at the Park Avenue Hotel, the event venue, in time for the morning coffee break. There was a good turn-out in spite of the inclement weather.

The agenda mostly concerned utilising Web 2.0 technologies. Dave Newman, from Queen’s University, presented on its e-consultation research project. I can’t quite remember how he got to it, but the presentation included this YouTube video of a busy junction, probably in India, which excited a lot of interest!

Caron Alexander, the N. Ireland Chair, had already circulated the Socitm Position Statement, which I again plugged in a short update.

After lunch, I stayed for the Committee’s meeting, and we discussed the proposal for a federal society. There were some concerns about the ability to maintain local relevance whilst supporting Socitm UK core themes, but colleagues supported the proposal and agreed to participate in a UK workshop to develop the detail.

Directgov Innovation

2009-02-05T20:08:00.004Z

As part of her latest MBA assignment, my colleague, Priya, is conducting a survey, which aims to evaluate and compare the online shopping experiences of Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. If you can help-out, please click here to participate. Thanks from us both in anticipation of your support!

I met Ben Rowland of Tribal (formerly RSe) for a catch-up at his office near Tottenham Court Road. There are some potential areas of collaboration, and we’ll be meeting again in May to consider further – by when I hope we’ll be in a better position to resource any agreed action.

Technology and telecare could transform dementia services. A trial is planned in NeAT.

There is a “Directgov Innovate” site with a “School Closures Alpha Demonstrator” at http://schoolclosures.org.uk/ to help answer quickly and simply which schools are open - in times of inclement weather, for example. (It’s closed for maintenance, as I write, ‘though.) I've added feeds from the site in the right column of this Blog.

Better late than never?

2009-02-04T21:15:00.002Z

We have finally published the Socitm Position Statement. I’m sorry it’s 10 days later than I said it would be. Memo to self – under promise, over deliver! I’ve written directly to Regional Chairs with the Statement, asking that it be communicated to all members, and it will also be featured in the upcoming monthly Socitm Newsletter. This just underlines the fact that we think it’s an important communication, and we are very keen to receive your feedback – good or bad.

Today was a scheduled home-working day, which has turned-out to be a very long one. External e-mail was delayed in the day, giving me the chance to get on with some other work – mainly planning for upcoming meetings – but then correspondence, some urgent, started arriving through the evening. Some concerned Government Connect, and further letters being sent by the Programme Office, which I knew were planned, as I explained in this Blog on Friday. Given the latest correspondence, ‘though, we will be writing to members in a Socitm broadcast, tomorrow, along the following lines.

Socitm accepts that the history of GC has not been ideal from a local government perspective and that had earlier advice from our members been taken we could have progressed far more efficiently. However we also acknowledge that, recently, many significant steps have been taken to ensure that GC is the best sustainable solution to meet the needs of local and central government and we are therefore supporting the GC team in implementing the solution as swiftly as possible. A number of our members have contacted us and commented on the tone of some recent correspondence from Government Connect. Our understanding is that GC has acted responsibly and that authorities, who have responded to requests for information, requested assistance and/or given legitimate reasons for missing deadlines have been offered appropriate levels of support. If this is not the case and any of our members can effectively demonstrate that it has not been we will happily, upon receipt of evidence, take this up as a matter of urgency with the GC Director.

Unlocking the Power of Local Information

2009-02-03T23:50:00.000Z

Once I’d freed my car from the snow and ice, my journey into the office, today, was wonderfully quick. Most of the outside of the A2 was still unusable, but the traffic was light. I can’t remember ever before driving into London without encountering a single queue!

Adrian Hancock and Elaine Davis met me at Direct House for a session on Business Partnership planning, and Steve Jones joined by audio-conference. Elaine and her husband flew-into Gatwick, yesterday, and will be in the UK for the next six weeks, during which time she will be working with the Events Team on the Spring Conference. We had a good meeting covering the partnership menu, revenue management, marketing and account management, sales, remuneration and data management.

We’ll continue to work on the proposition in the next two weeks, developing thinking on issues like the requirement for a commercial management role, and will meet again on 19th February, with a view to agreeing proposals to take to the Commercial Board on the 23rd.

The Government-sponsored “Power of Information Taskforce”, chaired by Richard Allan, former MP for Sheffield Hallam, has released a “beta version” of a report on liberalising non-personal government information. Richard will be speaking on “Unlocking the Power of Local Information” at the Socitm Spring Conference.

Coincidentally, I had a ‘phone conversation, today, with Richard Quarrell, about the PSIPHON project (to create tools to automate the creation of registers of public sector organisations’ Information Assets) that he and Adrian Norman presented to a Socitm Futures meeting, last November. To my great disappointment we (Socitm) have so far failed to progress the Working Party we committed to at that meeting. I arranged to meet with Richard on 16th to plan how to take this forward.

Snow-go

2009-02-02T23:05:00.000Z

This morning I was due to attend a “Green IT” event at the House of Lords. I drove in from Kent as far as Greenwich, and didn’t think conditions were too bad, but after hearing on the radio that all London buses were cancelled, most Tube lines were suspended, or part-suspended, no south-eastern trains were running, the Blackwall Tunnel was closed south-bound, more snow was expected later, and people were being urged not to travel unless they absolutely had to, decided to return home.

So, now am up-straight with correspondence again!

The Long Suffering Mrs S.

2009-01-30T23:07:00.002Z

Today’s Government Connect Awards Ratification Committee was postponed – to 13th February – because of the volume of entries received - now over 180 - and time needed to prepare.

I met, at Direct House, with Andy Lees, of CommVault. Andy was previously one of Newham’s HP account team. The CommVault proposition seems attractive; we discussed possible partnership with Socitm to assist in promotion.

I also discussed the potential for Socitm business partnership with Mike Rollings and Manfred Hartel, of Burton Group.

On Tuesday, next week, Adrian, Stephen Jones, Elaine Davis and I are meeting to discuss business development, and how we take these potential partnerships forward. Elaine, who currently lives in Florida, and is flying-in for our meeting, has for some years worked with the Socitm Events Team, selling Conference Sponsorship and Exhibition space.

In the afternoon, the LGA hosted a meeting at its offices in Smith Square to discuss the further Government Connect support programme that it and the DWP are funding. The emphasis is on promotion of the Local Government Data Handling Guidelines and how GC will support fulfilment of their aims. A two-year programme is envisaged. I was concerned that this should enshrine the development of pan-Government security vision and strategy. The meeting, which included the LGA’s Tim Allen, Siobhan Coughlan from the IDeA, Philip Littleavon and Simon Norbury from Government Connect, and Paul Charkiw from the Welsh LGA, debated the objectives at length, but we eventually agreed an initial list that’s likely to develop as the programme proceeds. Mike Short, from the IDeA will be the Policy Lead for the programme, and Mark Brett, of Silverthorne Associates, the Technical Lead; both were also present. Those present will form an Advisory Board, which will meet soon to agree its Terms of Reference.

Afterwards, Philip, Simon and I met to discuss the recent letters to Local Authorities that hadn’t yet submitted “a sufficiently mature Code of Connection”. We had to agree to differ on some of the language and context, but I had to concede that, if Authorities don’t achieve the check-points they’ve committed to, and haven’t got in-touch with the GC Team to explain, request help or negotiate variation of their agreements, then it’s reasonable to write to Chief Executives and Section 151 Officers requesting explanation and updates. Philip agreed to keep me informed of progress, and I pledged to do anything I, and Socitm, can do to assist GC and Local Authorities achieve CoCo compliance.

I think the CMA’s response to the interim “Digital Britain” report is excellent.

Today was Chris’s birthday. Yesterday, I was chasing around trying to find an anniversary card that she’d like, eventually buying one at our local 24 hour Asda. It only dawned on me that it was, in fact, her birthday, when I was making our early morning cuppa. She took it quite well when I tried to explain, but gave me one of her “long suffering” looks!

Ageing Britain

2009-01-29T21:43:00.001Z

The drive for broadband is building with the publication of Lord Carter’s interim report “Digital Britain”. I spoke, a little, about this requirement in a short presentation concerning Newham’s NeAT programme at the “Ageing Population 2009” conference at the QE II Conference Centre. I got there by mid-afternoon, having attended Alan’s funeral, in time for the afternoon keynote by Rosie Winterton, MP, Minister of State for Pensions. My session, following presentations from the RNID’s Jackie Ballard, and Councillor the Honourable Joan Taylor from the LGA, became the last before a panel Q&A session, which I joined. By now, the event had slipped behind schedule and the audience was dwindling, but it had been a sell-out, with coverage broadcast to an overflow audience in an adjacent room earlier in the day.

The event subject clearly struck a nerve; hardly surprising, given projections that men retiring at 65 will be able to look forward to another 24 years of life, on average, and women 27 years, as Rosie Winterton told us. Further conferences are planned, and I trust that digital Britain and Assistive Technology and TeleHealth will play a full part.

A Day of TechnoVision

2009-01-28T21:31:00.000Z

Andrew Stott, Deputy Government CIO, and Pierre Hessler, one of the Capgemini Executive, introduced today’s TechnoVision event at Capgemini’s offices in Woking. I thought the day enormously productive, was impressed by Andrew’s leadership, and enjoyed Pierre’s frequent articulate and amusing interventions. There is a short video of him talking about TechnoVision on the webpage I signposted yesterday, but which does not do him justice, in my view. (Today was his 42nd wedding anniversary, by the way!)

You’ll need to read the overview on the above webpage to appreciate the TechnoVision approach. In Teams, we considered what were the “must have” technologies versus the main business driver groups that had been selected – Professionalism, Efficiency, Citizen Centricity, Information Management & Security and Sustainability. I was in the Team considering the “You Experience” cluster. Results will be reported to the CIO Councils and, if I’m able to, I will provide a link from this Blog.

Later, separate Teams were formed to consider recommendations linked to the business driver groups. A late decision to set-up an “Overall” Team was taken, and I was co-opted into a Team that also included Andrew Stott and Pierre Hessler.

In terms of the Technology vision, the “Overall” Team decided that pan-Government network (unlike other corporate businesses, this doesn’t yet exist in Government) should support three key strategic pillars of security, collaboration and data management, enabling trust and the delivery of business vision.

Among the messages to the business are “we do understand the challenge – customer centricity – and we have the solutions provided we can address the above through strategic finance, enabling an effective delivery model backed by culture change”. As part of the Action Plan, we have a very specific and, I believe, pragmatic recommendation to make to the CIO Council as part of the Action Plan, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be knee-capped, or worse, if I report it here before the recommendations have been presented to the CIO Councils!

In the “Invisible Infostructure” technology cluster, it was noticeable that nearly all technologies listed under “Jericho (de-perimeterised) security” were identified as “must-haves”, but I was not particularly surprised to hear that what’s actually happening is pressure to “build the walls higher, and fill the moat with more crocodiles”. That, of course, is one of the major contradictions we have to reconcile if we are to make effective progress.

Other insights, for me, were emergent talk of a “G-Cloud” and “Civil Pages”.

Days like this can really help build consensus on the content of genuine public sector-wide vision and strategy (provided we can report them openly) and I certainly hope to be involved in more of them.

Apologies – publication of the Socitm Position Statement has been a little delayed. Vicky was unimpressed with the diagram I produced to try and exemplify the relationships between its constituent parts, and thought it may confuse more than it informed! She and Adrian have been working on an improved version, today, and I now hope the statement will be ready by the weekend. Vicky has already done a great job on editing the text, so I’m looking forward to seeing what magic she’s worked on the schematic.

Don't Overreact!

2009-01-26T23:35:00.001Z

Socitm's just-published IT Trends Report, which was completed before the recession hit, has geneerated headlines like "Local Authority IT Spend in 2008/9 reaches an all time high" and "Council IT spend to grow this year" that may seem optimistic given the financial environment in which we now find ourselves. However, the report highlighted that there needs to be a growing focus on using ICT to monitor and manage the business, and that's even more the case in a down-turn.

Security and privacy has rightly hit the top of the agenda, which brings additional challenges - of ensuring that solutions are pragmatic and that we don't overreact and disable the functionality that we have come to rely upon- especially as we look to flexible work-styles to to generate efficiency savings and facilitate more harmonious work-life balances.

After chatting with the BCS's Steve Coaker, this morning, I wrote to introduce him to colleagues in GMIS. The BCS is expanding its professional development business internationally, and Steve has account management responsibility for the US.

I was introduced, by Ian Dunmore, to Nico Macdonald (see www.spy.co.uk/ ) who came to chat with Richard Carde and myself about our Telecoms Convergence programme, and 2012 aspirations. Nico is working on the production of a Progress Summit in July, which will "focus on the short- and medium-term future of the city with an emphasis on re-establishing ambitious visions for the future, innovation and productivity, designerly thinking and humanism".

We explained our plans and objectives as best we could in return for which, hopefully, Nico has a wealth of connections he can share with us to help build support and sustain momentum in our programme!

Following a Caboodle Board meeting in the afternoon, and a meeting with HR on a staff matter, I made a point of getting home early so I could attend a TVR Car Club meeting to plan this year's Le Mans trip!

On Tuesday, I'm working at home, during the day, then off to a "CTO Community TechnoVision Event" pre dinner at Weybridge. Tomorrow's event, organised by Capgemini and the Cabinet Office, looks interesting. Information about the concept behind it is at http://www.capgemini.com/services/technology-services/technovision/

Seize the Day

2009-01-23T17:31:00.002Z

The Scottish Regional meeting was held at Stirling Council Chambers in Old Viewforth. Following Alan’s welcome comments, I was first up with my Socitm situation report and some thoughts about formalising a federal organisation. There were a number of comments about potential dilution of focus under the new remit; my view is there’s ample scope for the organisation of special interest groups within the new structure. There were also views about engagement with other professional bodies, like the BCS, and avoidance of duplication, but overall the meeting seemed supportive of the changes. Given that devolution has driven an increasingly separate agenda for country, it’s hardly surprising that no-one spoke against formalising a federal structure. At the conclusion of the meeting Alan confirmed that he would like the region to participate in a workshop (with England, Wales & Northern Ireland) to agree the detailed arrangements.

That there will continue to be a great deal of commonality across the UK was well demonstrated in the rest of the meeting agenda, which largely dealt with similar issues to those I’ve encountered in all the meetings I attend. There were speakers from Scotland’s Improvement Service (IDeA equivalent) on Customer First and shared services, covering things like the NLPG, e-Planning and flexible working, and case studies on service improvement.

During the coffee break I opened an e-mail informing me that Alan Constable, my boss when I worked in the City, has died suddenly. I’d like to think that Alan and I were close friends; we had some great times together, but did not part on the best of terms. I’ve been meaning to contact him for years – but now, of course it’s too late, and I’m full of remorse. It goes to show that life, as they say, is not a rehearsal and you have to seize your chances. My heart goes out to Eileen, and Alan's family.

I’m now on the train back to London, and again catching-up on correspondence. I see that my comments about Government Connect have been misreported in some of the media. I have expressed concerns about the delays in assembling the Support Team, but have never said there’ve been delays in providing funding.

Have a good weekend.

Towards a Federal Socitm...

2009-01-22T23:19:00.001Z

Gary McQuade, Managing Director of Spearmint Business Consulting, who is working for the NCC on the promotion and take-up of Accredit UK, met with me at Direct House. We discussed potential partnership and identified four areas in which we thought we may be able to work together – a Socitm UK theme around professional development for SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) linked to promotion of support for a public sector “Purchasers’ Charter”, working through our CIPFA relationship to link the BiP Solutions Accredit approach to financial management, working through the CIO Council with OGC Buying Solutions, and co-operation on Consultancy services. We’ll set-up a small workshop with key stakeholders to progress the proposals.

I then caught the noon “Highland Chieftain” from Kings Cross to Stirling for my dinner with some members of the Socitm Scotland Committee, and attendance at tomorrow’s regional meeting.

On the way I dealt with some correspondence and calls, including a catch-up on the Government Connect position. I called Philip about letters that went, last week, to Authorities who had not applied for exemption from the April deadline, but had not yet submitted “a sufficiently mature Code of Connection”. Philip told me 75% of the recipients of these letters have already replied “overwhelmingly positively”. That’s great, but I still have some concerns about the process, which we agreed to discuss early next week. Discussion at the recent CIO Council was of a far more strategic engagement than we’ve seen hitherto, linking EAS and the Ocean project, and raising hopes that we can actually adopt a joined-up approach rather than perpetuate the government silos with which the Local Public Sector is required to engage. I’d like the dialogue to reflect that more joined-up, partnership approach. Meantime, sincere thanks to public sector colleagues, including the Government Connect Team, for the commitment and resolve that’s being demonstrated in this project!

David Houston and I had dinner with Alan Kirkwood, Socitm Scotland Chair, and five of his committee colleagues at the Dunblane Hydro Hotel, where we were staying. I learned much about the who’s who, and who’s doing what where in Scottish Government, but discussion also turned to Socitm matters, and how a federal Socitm might work.

The day the London Evening Standard was sold for £1

2009-01-21T22:45:00.002Z

Last night’s e-Gov Awards winners are listed here, and there are loads of photos of the night here.

I attended the Microsoft Licensing Agreement Project Board at Church House, today. ‘Nuff said!

Afterwards, I caught the tail-end of Socitm’s Commercial Board, held at Intellect’s offices. It was agreed that Steve Jones, Adrian and I would pursue pilot business partnerships and associated contract and client management issues.

Pomp & Circumstance

2009-01-21T08:09:00.003Z

After working at home in the morning, I went in to Oracle’s offices, in Moorgate, to meet with Rachael Hartley and Juan Rada, Senior Vice President, Public Sector, and Munir Ismet, Vice President EMEA Public Sector, who I know from “way back when”, to discuss public sector developments in general, and Oracle’s relationship with Socitm.

Following which, I had a meeting on 2012 Data Centre requirements at LOCOG’s offices in Canary Wharf, with Nortel’s Fraser Dawkins and Roger Baugh, Senior Project Manager, Venue Technology Services.

In the evening I attended the e-Government National Awards, which were held at the City’s Guildhall. I’ve been to the Guildhall “campus” on many occasions before for meetings, but this was the first time I’ve actually been in the Guildhall, which is spectacular! How I wish I remembered to take a camera, but you can get a glimpse of the place at the Awards Site. It was built between 1411 and 1440 to reflect the importance of London’s ruling elite, and is the only stone building not belonging to the Church to have survived the Great Fire of London. The evening was accompanied by appropriate pomp, with the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company providing the guard of honour. It was nice to see such a large turnout, of around 500, in these austere times! (Apparently, the Dorchester, last year’s venue, wouldn’t have been big enough.)

Anyway, Tom Watson MP, the Cabinet Minister for Transformational Government was in attendance, and the Prime Minister again recorded a video message with congratulations to the winners, who will be listed on the Awards Site.

Tom’s colleague, the Communications Minister, Lord Carter, has pledged rapid broadband expansion. I am disappointed to see that Newham is not listed as among the Local Government pioneers (whose efforts, the EU has warned, could be uncompetitive) and interested to see 50Mb described as “ultrafast”. Pretty good for copper, ‘though.

The new PSMP interface, to be launched by the month-end, will look like this…

Rebranding on the Agenda

2009-01-19T23:09:00.002Z

There are a lot of organisations called “CMA”, I’ve found – such as the Complementary Medicine Association, The Christian Motorcyclists’ Association and the Community Media Association. Anyway, I met, this morning, with Glenn Powell, Chief Executive of The Communications Management Association, which was formed in 1958 but became part of the BCS Group 18 months ago. Having brought one another up-to-date on our organisations’ developments, we discussed the potential for collaboration, and concluded that it will be worth a further meeting to formalise a relationship. The CMA currently has no “vertical sectors” within its organisation, but I believe a shared expert panel focussing on public sector network and security would benefit us both.

Following the FOI request lodged, last week, by PSF the Socitm Board of Directors brought-forward branding considerations that have been on the “back-burner”. We agreed not to seek renewal of the .gov domain name, due in August this year, but to adopt a new domain to reflect recent developments in the Society. The following broadcast was sent to the Socitm membership:-

“Members may be aware that one or two commentators have raised questions about the appropriateness of Socitm’s .gov.uk designation.

“The gov.uk was granted to Socitm after a formal application to the relevant authority in the mid-1990s. Socitm applied for this designation on the basis that it was a membership organisation representing individuals in the public sector who themselves had .gov.uk addresses.
“Since that time Socitm has opened up its membership, and in October 2008 took this a significant stage further when it voted to allow members in the private sector to have equal status to that of public sector members. Late last year Socitm completed a merger with the charity IT organisation CITRA, which brought into Socitm membership a significant additional group of members also not working directly in the public sector.

“Given these developments, as well as the decision to open Socitm membership to ICT and related professionals at all career stages, Socitm has started to consider a range of issues around its name and branding – including the .gov.uk designation.

“Stimulated by a FoI request lodged with the CoI in the early January, Socitm brought forward the discussion about the .gov.uk designation and considered it at its board meeting on January 15.

“The board agreed that it will not seek renewal of the .gov.uk designation when this comes up in the Summer, because a .org or .net designation will better describe the current and future scope and purpose of the organisation. Changeover to the new designation is likely to coincide with the launch of a new website for Socitm scheduled for the summer.”

I had hoped that our new CMS, and website, would be ready to launch by April, which was the original plan… and yes, I suppose that was for partly egotistical reasons! However, it became evident that with the amount of work required, and the limited resources available to us that would be extremely ambitious and we agreed on a more realistic schedule. All the same, I’m hoping that my final act, as President, will be to preview the new website at our AGM in April.

The CRM implementation has also slipped a little, as a result of the takeover of the supplier of our financial management system, requiring work that impacts upon the required integration, but the new CRM should still be live by the month-end.

Odds & Sods

2009-01-16T23:43:00.001Z

Today was an “Odds & Sods” day!

I met Bob Heaton at his office in East Ham to discuss my return full-time to my “day job” from April, and for a general catch-up.

I wrote to Kathryn Rossiter, at SOLACE, with the suggested CEOs’ 10 questions, for discussion.

Circulated the final draft Socitm Position Statement to National Advisory Council and Board members. Any last comments are required by next Friday 23rd, after which it will be published.

Wrote a short briefing on the current Caboodle situation to Newham’s Deputy Mayor (a Caboodle Director) in preparation for a forthcoming board meeting.

I arranged with Elaine Davis, who undertakes marketing of sponsorship and exhibition space for Socitm Conferences, to meet, later this month, to discuss this and related activity, such as our planned business partnerships.

Lee Grafton, from the DWP GC Team, wrote to say that they are now assembling the new Support Team!! I spent some time in ‘phone calls and contacting colleagues to assist in this connection. (Philip Littleavon copied me, among others, into a reply to the Society of London Treasurers regarding their disquiet about Government Connect. A missed opportunity, I thought, to refer to EAS, and ease concerns about flexible working and non Council-owned equipment.)

Geoff, Richard Carde and I met for an update on the Newham Telecoms Convergence programme and Data Centres.

I totally failed, ‘though, to get to grips with this week’s correspondence!

First Board Meeting in a New Financial Year

2009-01-15T21:56:00.002Z

David Clayden was welcomed to his first Socitm Board meeting today. David has accepted portfolio responsibility for “the Third Sector & Social Responsibility”. The updated portfolio list follows although, in practice, there is a lot of overlap. Much of the actual work is undertaken in the Commercial and Membership Boards. Board meetings are also attended by Melanie Smith, the Finance Manager, and Pam Larsen, the Company Secretary.

This was a productive meeting, the minutes of which will be published to members in due course. In the meantime, items that you may consider noteworthy are:

We are working on sharing board members’, main activists’ and staff calendars to facilitate planning. We also intend to publish the calendar of our activities on behalf of the Society via the website. This will say what meetings we are attending, and when, but not provide details of location or people involved for obvious reasons. My own calendar is already included at the end of the Blogspot copy of my Blog, although it needs some tidying-up, and I’m currently only updating it at weekends.

We expect to publish the Position Statement by the 26th January. This will also be sent to Regional Chairs for the information of all Members.

The Socitm Membership Board is making good progress in developing the membership category proposals for next year. It is also working on Corporate Membership scheme proposals to be piloted this year, and a detailed professional development framework. There is a lot of work to get through, but it’s expected that a roadmap will be outlined at the April AGM, and details presented for consultation at the next NAC (in May).

The Board approved the budget for this year. This, we believe, provides a prudent level of contingency, whilst maintaining progress in the development of the Society and maintaining reserves at around the current level. We are reassessing what the minimum level of reserves should be, and expect that it can be set at a lower level following the work undertaken to reduce financial risks. Clearly, ‘though, these are “interesting” times and we’ll closely monitor against the baseline with variance and predicted outturn being considered at each Board meeting.

We have been struggling to arrange a meeting that everyone can attend, to be hosted by Shey Cobley at Oxford, to consider the proposition for different professional disciplines and, particularly, young people. This now looks like happening on 4th March.

After the Board meeting, Mark Barber, from KPMG, joined Adrian, David Bryant, David Houston and myself at Camden Town Hall to discuss potential collaboration or partnership in performance management. We agreed further discussion, of which more anon.

Some Progress, and Some Concerns

2009-01-14T23:31:00.001Z

I’m feeling really buoyed-up after today’s Socitm National Advisory Council! There was ample challenge, but the discussion and debate was extremely constructive throughout. John Serle, the NAC Chair, and I met one-to-one for an hour, or so, ahead of the meeting, which was invaluable. John helped me to clarify my own thoughts on some of the questions of how to build membership value now that we have turned our attention from reorganisation and sustainability to effectively engaging our membership.

The first substantive agenda item was the President’s report, which I used the draft Position Statement to frame, introducing proposals on the way forward that John’s advice helped to formulate. The essential points were to channel communications through the regions and, particularly, the regional Chairs, and that the Executive should develop propositions to the NAC on the ways in which issues, such as membership segmentation and special interest groups, should be organised, rather than the other way around. Sometimes, you can’t see the woods for the trees!

Some other key areas of guidance from the NAC were in agreeing regional themes, involving members in effective influence and lobbying through Expert Panels and in less communications “noise” and more discriminating use and moderation of discussion forums.

I’m not going to play-out the whole meeting, here; the minutes, as always, will be published to the membership as soon as they are ready. I do expect, however, the board, tomorrow, will endorse a number of initiatives based on NAC members’ advice. The timing of this month’s board to immediately follow the NAC looks-like being the right approach, and we’re planning futures meetings to follow the same arrangement. John, Glyn Evans – the Chair of Socitm Futures – and I previously agreed to meet to ensure the working relationship is clear and effective, and we’re now arranging this as soon as possible. Steve Palmer will join as to ensure continuity as we approach his Presidency.

After the NAC I went to meet with Natalie Smith, of PAConsulting, at their offices in Buckingham Palace Road. PA was recruited, by the DCSF, to provide programme management and support for the EAS (Employee Authentication Services) roll-out. The DCSF aims to recruit 50 Councils to “onboard”, as they call-it, EAS by April. Socitm is generally supportive of the development and we were pleased to be consulted about the proposals early on, as I have previously reported. However, I’m now concerned that the project that’s developed is hugely ambitious; it appears to be making the same mistake as Government Connect in requiring Local Authorities to commit to activity that they’ve had no opportunity to budget for. Councils are meeting, “as we speak” to agree 2009/10 budgets and set Council Tax rates, and it’s now too late for them to provide for the cost implications of implementing EAS.

EAS makes tremendous sense – provided it is integrated with Government Connect. Some of the biggest problems in the CoCo requirements are in supporting flexible working using mobile devices and personally owned equipment using technology such as terminal services. EAS should be able to provide an appropriate authentication solution to these problems.

I committed Socitm to help in the Communications programme by asking regions to provide presentation slots in their events programme early in the year, in including publicity material in our broadcasts, and in helping to recruit volunteers to be early adopters. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are not attuned to the real concerns that are bound to materialise. The rollout of Contact Point, already long delayed, will be reliant on EAS. Again, this is clearly the right solution, but engagement plans must be practical.

There is an EAS Board meeting, next week, which I’m unable to attend, but hope to arrange Socitm representation at. There are also a number of Community of Interest Working Groups coming-up, which we’ll be represented in. Do, please, let me have your views on how we should proceed.

Hey-Ho

2009-01-13T23:33:00.000Z

Today was one of those that didn’t go as planned.

A planned meeting at Newham Town Hall fell-through because of sickness, so I worked there on correspondence, before driving to Stratford for a network infrastructure update meeting, over lunch, with Richard Carde and Greenwich’s Henri Reinbolt.

After lunch I met with James Lee for an update on PSMP and associated network issues. We are up to 10,000 unique users on the Newham PSMP, which will include the TfL Journey Planner from next Monday.

A planned Teleconference with a BCS colleague did not materialise, and dinner with a Microsoft colleague was cancelled because of sickness. However, I stayed in town, and met-up with Adrian Hancock, David Houston and John Serle. We had dinner at Busaba Eathai, and discussed Socitm and continuing challenges before us.

Ian Dunmore, from Public Sector Forums, called me yesterday to let me know he had lodged a Freedom of Information query with the Central Office of Information, asking questions such as the grounds for granting Socitm its .gov domain name and, sure enough, we heard, today, from the COI that the request was received. That’s an irritation that we could well do without at this time, but hey-ho.

The OGC has now launched tools that are aimed at improving the chances of ICT procurement success. Its “pre-qualification” tool is for internal use – the sort of thing you would expect to see in a business case before getting the go-ahead to start procurement.

Also, the Information Commissioner’s Office launched a model publication scheme. This is the link for the scheme applying to “principal” Local Authorities.

Government CTOs visit MS Research Labs.

2009-01-12T22:20:00.004Z

Today I had a longstanding commitment to visit, with the CTO Council and a few CIO Council members, the Microsoft Research Laboratories at Cambridge. Although two other important SOCITM meetings – Socitm Futures and the Membership Board - had subsequently been arranged, I decided to keep the Microsoft appointment as such opportunities to engage “en masse” with other senior government colleagues are few and far between.

Nicola Hodson, Microsoft’s Public Sector General Manager (who replaced Terry Smith) and Andrew Stott, the Cabinet Office Head of Service Transformation, and Deputy Government CIO, introduced the meeting.

Then Bob Hayes explained that he is currently the only UK member of the seven-member Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments, which was established in the States after 9/11, and extended to the UK in November 2007.

Early on the question of the ponderous development of Windows Mobile, and inadequate security, came-up. This, we are promised, is being addressed in Windows 7; “significant work is ongoing and security will be addressed whilst maintaining rich functionality”.

Otherwise, some of the points I thought more noteworthy from quite a packed day were:

In his research overview, Andrew Herbert, the Managing Director of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, told us that the Labs recruit 80 Ph.D interns per year. (From a population of a billion, India had only 64 graduates last year, which I thought interesting given the preponderance of “Shift Happens” presentations, last year, reflecting graduates’ inability to pay to continue studies; so Microsoft Research in India has become a degree-awarding body.)
Among projects that have developed from one research partnership programme is one to preserve electronic archives by virtualising all previous operating systems to enable the archives to be viewed using old and new technologies supporting questions like “what was life like” as well as maximising the utility of material through exploitation of contemporary technology.
A lot of the presentations involved developments in photography/ video – using parallax to determine positioning and depth enabling addition and/or subtraction of content, for example. Incidentally, “Geosynth” an offline version of Photosynth, is now available for Government. A suggested application was enabling effective scene-of-crime presentations to Juries, which is something I remember being discussed as a problem when I was involved, some time ago, in a project with the Met. Police.
Other presentations included “Deep Zoom”, “HD View” and SenseCam.
Computer mediated applications are becoming more humanistic, adaptive immersive etc…
You can now install Virtual Earth behind your Firewall, but if you want data for the whole world, it’s 17 petabytes!
Windows Azure (now being tested by some partners in pre-beta form, otherwise known as “Community Technology Preview”) was positioned as the Windows operating system for the Cloud.
Azure and Microsoft Online Services presentations clearly signalled the company’s intentions to move into direct services offerings. There would, we were told, be no bespoke contracts – i.e. technology refresh and new software versions, will be automatic – and the current position is that hosting will be offered only from Microsoft’s own Data Centres!
This fed neatly into a truly impressive presentation of Microsoft Data Centre developments, driving down costs and energy efficiency.

I thought the day worthwhile, and there was a lot I’d like to follow-up, not least from a Socitm Futures perspective. I hope to participate in other cross-government supplier engagements to help inform the prospective government technology roadmap.

The Tough Get Going...

2009-01-10T11:45:00.003Z

The Socitm Events Team met at Bucks County’s HQ in Aylesbury.

It’s confirmed that we will be running a spring event at Stoneleigh Park on 23rd April, which will incorporate the Society’s Annual General Meeting. Put it in your diaries!

The event title is, as I write, work in progress, but may be prefaced “UK”, since a federal organisation is among the considerations that I’m now leading consultation upon, and this could be among the matters for decision at the AGM.

Prices for both this, and the annual conference in Edinburgh (11th to 13 the October) will be held at previous levels. However, we’re also considering “bundles” to incorporate membership (for those not already members) and discounting for multiple attendees from the same organisation. This matter has been referred to the Membership Board (which meets next week) for guidance.

The conference will incorporate a small exhibition of, probably, around 20 stands, and a new initiative, this year, will be a programme of 15 minute supplier presentations/ demonstrations as optional alternatives to the main plenary theme.

The outline programme will be included in a press release within the next 2-3 weeks, but will include third sector and contemporary content, including how to gain advantage using ICT in a financial crisis!

The Credit Crunch will be uppermost in our minds, next week, when a number of key meetings for Socitm take place. These include the National Advisory Council, and the membership, commercial and main boards. There can be few who benefit from the financial crisis and its timing for Socitm – just as it was switching from “survival mode” to building the business – certainly is not great. Decisions we make in the next few weeks will be critical not only to our ability to deliver upon the new responsibilities that we’ve taken-on, but also to our long-term existence.

I remain confident that we will survive and prosper as an organisation through whose membership ICT will cement its preeminent role in business effectiveness, but it would be foolhardy and irresponsible to downplay the challenges and risks that we face!

Public Sector Infrastructure Optimism

2009-01-08T21:09:00.003Z

The minutes of today’s Local CIO Council at the School of Government will be published on the Socitm website. In the meantime, the following were the main items in a packed agenda.

The DWP’s Philip Littleavon attended and we had a full and frank discussion of the CoCo issues, and a pragmatic way forward. Socitm remains committed to support the programme, but we obviously voiced our dismay about the delay in assembling the promised support package. There was appreciation of the difficulties on either side, and agreement to continue working together to overcome them. I’m glad to say that Philip developed his presentation to make links with other infrastructure projects, such as the Public Services Network (also presented) that will see Government Connect develop to be the security framework for all intra-Government transactions.

John Stubley’s PSN presentation majored on the Ocean project, which was impressive. There is clearly a well-developed vision behind this “network of networks”, but my main comment was that this should be published and developed to link in all the current government infrastructure projects that have their roots in silo’d initiatives. There’s full information about the Public Sector Network and Ocean procurement on the CIO Council website. Open Government!

Rob Anderson from OGC Buying Solutions attended to present the proposed framework for the Microsoft Licensing Agreement. The initial feedback was unanimously positive, although we need to spend some time testing the model against all requirements. The proposal will be presented to a Microsoft Project Board meeting on 21st of this month for endorsement. I’ll say no more, for the present, as I’m not supposed to be saying anything at all! However, I remain optimistic about this project as a model for joined-up Government procurement, with the proviso that all of Government really must join-in.

Roy Marshall, CIO for the DCLG, and a member of the Central CIO Council, attended to support these items. The Group later agreed to invite Roy to join the Local CIO Council as a permanent member in the interests of strengthening cross-representation.

Other guests, today, included Kevin Hayes, from the CESG, and William Barker from DCLG.

I got home at 5.00 and was invited by my daughter, Kim, to go running with her. Well, I’ve been meaning to start doing something about getting myself fit again so… I survived... just!

Get More Social!

2009-01-07T18:02:00.001Z

Thanks for comments on my Blog, advising me that the bracelet for people with dementia was developed by Medical Intelligence in Canada, with whom Orange, particularly in France, have a distribution agreement - and also advising of other TeleCare resources.

CIOs have been told to get more social, including “prolific use” of social networking. I think that includes use of Blogs; I’ve added a “followers” gadget on the Blogspot version of the Socitm President’s Blog, and would love readers to use it to let me know if they are there!

What’s in a word or acronym? SOA, we are told, is out!

I’ll be chatting, tonight, to Philip Littleavon about progress in the new support arrangements for Government Connect and CoCo. I hope this won’t be the last chance to apply for funding.

The draft Socitm Position Statement has been sent to Socitm National Advisory Council; the Board hopes to gain its endorsement at next Wednesday’s NAC meeting.

I worked from home until time to set-off for Sunningdale for tomorrow’s Local CIO Council meeting.

In the Big Freeze, reminded of the "Big Stink"

2009-01-06T23:10:00.001Z

I met, at Direct House, with Paul Waller and Louise Bazalgette of the Digital Inclusion Team. (I didn’t notice your last name in our meeting, Louise. Is Sir Joseph among your ancestors?) We agreed there is much that Socitm can do in helping to promote the effective use of ICT to support Social Equality, particularly through making links to the relevant National Indicators. These included asking all regions to invite the Team to present as part of this year’s local events programme, carrying articles in our newsletter, signposting other relevant media, and facilitating discussion and debate. I will also endeavour to represent the Team’s work in meetings I have with other peer groups and stakeholders.

We also discussed linking into Newham’s work, particularly in TeleCare and TeleHealth and will brief Martin Scarfe who wasn’t able to make our meeting. As ever, much of our discussion hinged upon the requirement for universal broadband coverage. Louise told me about work the Team is supporting in the Aldgate area of the City of London, where they are proposing to use data over power circuits, and we agreed to stay in-touch concerning developments. Paul told me about a bracelet, developed by Orange, to help locate vulnerable people – e.g. Alzheimer’s sufferers – who may be lost, of which I was unaware. I would think we should use this in Newham’s planned TeleCare dementia trial. He also told me of Hull’s digital TV developments providing support to vulnerable groups, known as “Stream”.

More about the Digital Inclusion Team’s work, available tools, research, consultation and reports is at http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/digitalinclusion/

John Price and his colleague, Rupert Green, from Logicalis, met with Geoff and I to follow-up on a contact we made at the Socitm Conference. We talked mostly about Logicalis’s approach to (data centre) virtualisation. Its Grace product seems of particular interest.

In the afternoon Adrian, Martin Fuggles and I met with Charlotte Gooch and four of her colleagues from Guardian Professional at their smart new offices near Kings Cross. (Actually, they are still based at their Farringdon offices, which are altogether different!) We had a very productive meeting in furtherance of the Socitm Events Working Group’s exploration of the Society’s future approach to events management. It became clear that there are a range of partnership possibilities, and we agreed upon further exchange of information and follow-up actions on either side.

Gordon's Square Deal

2009-01-05T16:55:00.002Z

It’s heartening to know, as we embark upon a new year that seems especially uncertain for many of us, that our Prime Minister has a plan.

“Brown suggested that infrastructure such as high-speed broadband could be the modern equivalent of Roosevelt's programme: ‘When we talk about the roads and the bridges and the railways that were built in previous times - and those were anti-recession measures taken to help people through difficult times - you could [by comparison] talk about the digital infrastructure and that form of communications revolution at a period when we want to stimulate the economy. It's a very important thing.’”

I can’t argue with that, and although the article was based on a (Guardian) press interview, and is not a formal policy announcement, am slightly encouraged!

I was in touch with Professor David Hircock over the holiday. (He and his family spent Christmas in the UK.) No – we haven’t forgotten about the International Social Justice Campaign, and hope to have further news soon. In the meantime, I’ve written to LOLA colleagues asking them to set-up a discussion forum, which I will signpost when it’s ready.

We heard, over the holiday, that BCS members voted strongly in favour (91.2%) of the proposal to enable BCS to establish a registration body that can license other bodies to award the Society's CITP status. So we are, hopefully, a step closer to enabling Socitm to award Chartered IT Professional status.

Today, it was back to work from home – mostly on a draft of the “Position Statement” that the December Board agreed to produce. I hope we’ll be in a position to agree and publish this before the end of the month.

All the best for 2009!

Hey Ho...

2009-01-01T23:26:00.000Z

White Christmas

2008-12-24T08:19:00.001Z

Couldn't resist adding this, which a friend sent me. (Click title.)

Happy Holidays!

The Lemsip Nights before Christmas

2008-12-23T18:09:00.000Z

I think I must be psychologically programmed to be ill in the run-up to Christmas. This year it started on Saturday, with a sore throat, muzzy head, feeling a little feverish and generally feeling like death warmed-up. So, I’ve been on Lemsip ever since!

On Monday I worked from home and, in a twelve hour stint, cleared the correspondence backlog. Of necessity, that involved sending a lot of e-mails. Hopefully, many of the recipients are already on holiday, or in the holiday spirit, and won’t want to trouble me with a reply before the New Year.

One of the items concerned this article challenging the third sector to lead the way in transforming public services, which, of course, we agree with and is why CITRA has joined with us, and we have linked-up with the CCitDG.

The correspondence also included our broadcast with information about the new membership structures and transitional fee arrangements, attached to which was a book offer. This was made with the very best of intentions, but it’s been pointed-out to me that there are better offers available. I don’t think we can ever guarantee that any such offers that we make cannot be beaten, but we will undertake more testing in an endeavour to ensure that future offerings do represent best value.

On Tuesday, I had meetings, in town with 2e2 and Oracle in furtherance of the consultation we are undertaking with supplier members on strategic partnerships. I hope to report on actions arising from these meetings early in the New Year.

The PSMP usage statistics are looking truly impressive, with MyNewham.mobi clocking-up over 4,000 visitors in November and well over 3,000 this month up to 17th December. Usage of our street-based kiosks appears to have halved, however, and it seems we may have a reasonable efficiency saving in sight!

I’m working tomorrow, but from home, and have a number of reports that I want to produce for the next board meeting – before Chris and I spend the evening down the Pub with our mates, and my throat hopefully improved to the point where I can drink without discomfort!

I’ll be back blogging again on 5th January. In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Hung-over

2008-12-19T18:10:00.003Z

Shane and I attended a further meeting with Steria representatives at their Holborn offices to discuss Caboodle accounts and pension liabilities.

David Houston and Bernard Gudgin joined me in a meeting with Phillip Webb, Chair of the BCS Government Relations Group. Phillip explained the various ways in which the BCS works with government, providing independent, impartial advice. We agreed to share information about the ways we (Socitm & BCS) work with Government, including strategy, workshops and reports, with a view to agreement of areas in which we can partner or co-operate. We agree also, to discuss responses to government consultations with a view to bolstering feedback by presenting a united front, where appropriate.

In discussing consultation on matters such as Governance of Information and public knowledge and views on information security matters, Phillip mentioned the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) programme of themed local events – typically held in Coffee Shops (which is where the RSA started-out) and their approach to thought leadership. I always assumed the RSA was the Royal Society of Arts, and for “arty” people so, as a result of my re-education, I’ve been looking at their excellent website, and I think I’m going to apply to join. Look, for example, at Richard Watson’s lecture.

Thursday evening saw Newham ICT’s Christmas party at the Ramada Hotel on Royal Victoria Dock. Chris joined me, after a shopping trip with our daughter, Kim, in Camden Town, and we stayed over. We had a great time, and I worked at home, on Friday, which was as well for me to nurse my hangover!

Philip Littleavon got in-touch concerning Government Connect, and he explained his new plan and reorganisation to provide support for CoCo achievement. A new Core Team is being established that will dispense more prescriptive, consistent advice to authorities more efficiently. Socitm will assist with resources to provide accelerated adoption in London, with a view to then being able to make those resources available to the rest of the country. Whatever eventually transpires through funding available via the LGA/ IdeA will run in parallel with this, but I am now relieved that the proposals we discussed in September are finally going to be implemented. Philip and I will meet early in January to ensure follow-through. Although this is now happening much later than we had planned, I know that Philip is sincere in sharing my frustrations with the delays, which are not of his making.

Anybody Out There?

2008-12-17T17:48:00.002Z

Today I worked at home, mostly ploughing through correspondence. Still hundreds to go, but I’ve cleared November!

I’m concerned that the full package of CoCo support planned with Government Connect has been very slow in materialising. I’m trying to enquire into the situation, and will report back here.

I was delighted to receive a comment on the Socitm President’s Blog from Afghan Citizen, today. That set me to wondering what other overseas audience we may have but, currently, the only indication of readership sources is from clicks in the President’s Blog Cloud, and there aren’t many of them! Nevertheless, they tell me that we’ve had clicks from the US, Spain, Ireland, Nepal and Ghana, as well as the UK. Maybe I’ll set-up monitoring over Christmas but, in the meantime, let us know you’re there by clicking in the Blog Cloud! (Not yet available on the Socitm.Gov.UK site but, of course, will be in the new system.)

Getting ready for Christmas.

2008-12-16T23:15:00.003Z

Adrian and I met at SOLACE’s offices in Hope House, Great Peter Street, with Kathryn Rossiter, the Society’s Director of Development & Operations, to discuss the relationship between our organisations and opportunities for joint working and/or co-operation. The understandable context for our wide-ranging discussion was the challenge of engaging executives, who have tremendous demands on their time and can only offer a short span of attention in which to gain their commitment. The credit crunch can only exacerbate the demands for efficiency and, as we’re convinced, in Socitm, that our information management infrastructures should be used much more effectively, that will be the focus for our initial pitch. Kathryn suggested drafting “10 key questions” to CEOs, which is what we’ll do, and will help us to establish a CEO panel with whom we can discuss the outcome. Apparently, SOLACE had (or has) an “IT Panel & Professional Matters” Group, whose status she’ll also enquire into, as we may be able to link into that.

There are many parallels in recent developments in SOLACE and Socitm. There included commercial development exigencies and market intelligence, international development and social responsibility, and SOLACE also has a need to modernise its systems, as we are doing, which may provide further scope for collaboration that we agreed to follow-up. All in all, we thought, a very helpful meeting.

Starting with lunch, we met in the afternoon with CIPFA officials at their offices near Charing Cross. They included Alan Edwards, the CIPFA IT panel Chair, Paul Jackson, Performance Improvement Advisor (Technology), the Director of Business Development and Assistant Director, Policy & Technical. Alan chaired our discussion, which was structured in three areas – commercial, research and policy. We agreed an initiative on review/ endorsement and co-branding of products of common interest. In the past, CIPFA and Socitm have worked very well together – particularly during the CCT (Compulsory Competitive Tendering) era – and we hope to re-establish that sort of productive relationship supporting cross-cutting matters. CIPFA colleagues agreed to consider development of guidance on sustainable funding of ICT, enabling accurate cost accounting through the various channels, recognising that these are increasingly operated through partnerships.

In the evening I attended a dinner hosted by Lord Erroll in the Attlee Room at the House of Lords to discuss the UK National Identity Scheme. Geoff Llewellyn chaired, as usual, and James Hall, CEO of the Identity and Passport Service, was the speaker. I knew many of the attendees from previous dinners, but “new faces” included Glyn Evans and David Wilde. I was impressed at the pragmatic and business-like approach that has now materialised in the Identity Card programme but a number of attendees, me included, perhaps unfairly, extended the debate to encompass pan-Government security and PR concerns.

I think I must still have been a little jet-lagged as, for a second day, I was really struggling with tiredness! I got home at midnight; Chris was still up, putting the finishing touches to Christmas decorations, which was nice to arrive home to.

Back to Business Development

2008-12-15T23:11:00.001Z

My first appointment, back at work, was with Richard Carde, who has been appointed as the Programme Manager for the Newham Telecoms Convergence Program. The network extension to Building 1000 is almost complete, and remaining fibre roll-out ought to be reasonably straight-forward, but in parallel with that we need to commence procurement of the special purpose vehicle to further develop and operate the infrastructure and services. The WiMax pilot with Intel to inform overall wireless requirements for the programme should also be established without further delay. I’ll also need to help Richard to link-into the extensive network of stakeholders that has been created through the development of this programme.

The first formal Socitm Commercial Board met at Camden Town Hall. Several directors were not able to make the meeting but David Bryant, who was voted the Chair, Steve Jones, David Houston, Adrian and I had a productive meeting in which we developed the basic terms of reference and scope, and discussed priorities. Key decisions concerned how to define a “commercial” service versus a member benefit, and establishing a “Chinese Wall” between the divisions. Essentially, any service that is not part of the basic membership provision and/ or is designed to generate profits will be a commercial service, and therefore come under the remit of the commercial board. (A reminder that all profits are generated to fund existing member services and finance further developments.) The exceptions will be provision of meeting venues for routine and ad-hoc meetings, which will be treated as an administrative function.

Among the initial tasks is to develop a pro-forma for the business case to accompany any new service development proposals. We will also be gathering-in and reviewing all existing Terms of Reference for existing commercial activities, and considering our approach to the auditing of services’ efficiencies. We discussed our planned approach to investment, and shared risk and reward, and a number of potential new service developments, but agreed our first concern must be to ensure that the governance structure is fully developed and understood. An exception is the development of Business Partnerships, which some private sector members are rightly pushing us to get going.

The Member Benefits Board met while I was on holiday. I’ll aim to include a report-back from that in my New Year President’s Report.

Back to Reality

2008-12-14T16:35:00.005Z

New Zealand was every bit as magical as other visitors had told us to expect. We did far too much to recount in detail, but highlights were the drive from the east to west coasts of the south island, and driving through the West Coast Mountains in a storm; better than any thrill ride! Our favourite city was Queenstown. I’ve marked our route and stopovers on the map.

We flew back from Christchurch via Auckland, breaking our journey with a couple of days in San Francisco, staying in Fisherman’s Wharf. We did a city tour, including landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, rode the Cable Car, visited Alcatraz and explored Pier 39, North Beach and Chinatown. After two weeks of mainly self-catering in a campervan, dining out was a real treat!

Our arrival back to a cold and dismal London was back to Earth with a bump!

I read “The English Assassin”, a competent thriller by Daniel Silva, and Dee Brown’s “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee”, which Simon Berlin recommended. This moving and humbling history of “how the west was won”, from the Indians’ perspective, should, if it’s not already, be a part of the US schools’ curriculum. I was reminded of the movie “Soldier Blue”, which must have been based on one of the accounts. When, in the early days of our marriage, I took Chris to see it, she didn’t speak to me for a week afterwards. I have yet to find anything else quite so effective!

2008-12-02T16:22:00.002Z

We had a meeting of the Board of Directors yesterday which I chaired in Richard's absence. There is still a lot of work going on behind the scenes as we move the Society to its new position and we are now establishing the membership and commercial boards as well as developing work with the National Advisory Council. Linked to a review of our Events programme, how we better enable peer working, encourage our younger professionals, strengthen relationships with the regions, improve our own back office and ensure that we have strong finances I think we have "turned the corner". The Board is also aware that a large proportion of what has gone on is somewhat invisible to the membership and that cannot continue. We are now putting together a position statement on where we are and what we see as our future priorities and want you to let us know your thoughts when you see it (in the next couple of weeks hopefully). In March we intend to have an annual report ready on 2008 activities and also move forward on the vision for Socitm for the next 3 to 5 years. This work will be ready for the AGM which we are intending to hold on 23rd April, probably at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire. The day will be themed and structured differently to our traditional Spring Seminars. Put the date in your diary now, more details to follow as the programme and ideas develop.

Steve Palmer

NZ Conference Report

2008-11-27T19:29:00.001Z

With CITRA’s merger with Socitm now largely complete, David Claydon, the President of the CCitDG (and Director of Strategic Information for the Salvation Army, UK & Ireland) has accepted an invitation to join the board of Socitm as a Non-Executive Director.

The ALGIM Conference Welcome Plenary was held in a marquee adjacent to the part of the hotel in which the exhibition was held. Mike Manson, ALGIM’s CEO, was the Master of Ceremonies, first introducing Rick Cooper, the Mayor of Taupo, for his opening address. We international guests were introduced, and then each sponsor got up to present themselves. They were invited onto the stage in alphabetical order, and a buzzer sounded at the end of two minutes if they were still speaking. The presentations were split into two sessions, before and after the evening dinner. This worked well; the presentations were good natured, and I found them to be quite informative, although many claimed they were “only here for the beer”! During the proceedings, Mike played several amusing videos, including one of “George Bush” and “Condolesa Rice”, and the Miami Dade Police recruitment video, having called Commander June Randall (one of the international guests, and rather more petite than her title seems to suggest) up onto the stage, who took it all in good part.

On Monday, Mike Wanden, the ALGIM President, opened the formal proceedings, and there were presentations from Rod Titcombe, Chairman of New Zealand’s “Local Government Online” – a commercial organisation set-up and owned by NZ Local Authorities that develops and sells Local Government solutions – and Basil Morrison, Chairman of the Local Government Forum Board. Jim Higgins, the CEO of Local Government Online, spoke on behalf of New Zealand’s new Digital Development Council, and its plans to support the development of the country’s broadband infrastructure. During the conference, I heard many references to how far behind NZ is in broadband development, with unflattering comparisons with places like Zambia and Fiji, and I have to say that I struggled with the poor performance of the hotel “broadband” throughout our stay. Maurice Williamson, the MP whose portfolio included New Zealand ICT, until the change of Government two weeks ago, had been due to speak. From some of the comments, I’m not sure what sort of reception he would have received!

Annette Presley, who I hadn’t heard of, but is well-known in New Zealand as one of its most dynamic entrepreneur’s (and lives next to Bill Gates, apparently) was the motivational and inspirational speaker. Her rags-to-riches tale, despite adversity, with its main messages being confront your fears, learn from failure and do what you enjoy most. She did also say that her first employer (and mentor) sent her home three times to change her clothes and I couldn’t help thinking that, in spite of all that wealth, she still had rather odd dress-sense! However, I’m not exactly famed for my sartorial taste, she’s super-rich, and I’m not, and not only was her story truly inspiring, but also she now does a lot of work to help young people to realise their dreams.

James Hettrick, a US evangelist for connected communities, a former Local Government CIO who was responsible for pioneering work on broadband rollout in the city of Loma Linda, California, and founder of ISMS, was another keynote speaker. In his session – “An Economic & Feasibility Case for New Zealand Broadband Infrastructure” – among other things, he spoke about reusable plastic fibre suitable for use in pre-prepared domestic trunking, and rugged kerb-side trunking installed in slots easily cut with grinders to reduce deployment costs. He also demonstrated a “patch panel” suitable for installation in street chambers, which reduces costs by avoiding the need to terminate all the fibre pairs.

Other interesting presenters over the three days of the conference included Jan Zawadzki, CEO of Zawadzki Limited – a New Zealand based Google Business Partner – who told us that the Web is now just over 5,000 days old and, in the past few weeks, the number of web pages indexed by Google passed a trillion. I saw Anna Karin Jonbrink, a Parliamentary Advisor to the EU in Sweden, present on “Green ICT - Energy and Environment Manager” in Sweden, but here she spoke in English, so I took the opportunity to attend her session again, and now realise that her research shows that the greatest environmental impact from PCs is in use, not manufacture and disposal, which is the accepted wisdom in the UK, so I plan to put her in-touch with Catalina McGregor, who leads on Green ICT matters for the UK. I also saw Fairfax County’s Deputy County Executive, Dave Mulchany’s, excellent presentation on the use of Social Media in Local Government when I was in Atlantic City, but he presented to ALGIM via video-link from his in Washington DC office, so I attended again to see how it went. Mike Manson told me ALGIM has been doing video-link presentations for 5 years, and it showed, as the presentation was of a very high quality.

On Tuesday morning, I presented on developments in Socitm, and the Changing Role of the IT Professional, and included an overview of Newham and the opportunities it’s pursuing. One of the audience recently emigrated to NZ, having worked in Newham, so we later chatted during a boat tour of Lake Taupo that was among delegates ‘leisure options for late Tuesday afternoon. Rod Drury, a New Zealand Technologist & Entrepreneur presented on “The Role of Local Government in Broadband” on Wednesday morning. He spotted me in the audience – “oh look, there’s Richard Steel!” Newham was among the first UK customers for his product “@ftermail”, which he subsequently sold to the US company, “Quest”. Rod made the case for publicly financed broadband infrastructure development, which, of course, I agreed strongly with, since we’re doing it in Newham, but it was especially interesting hearing the case made by a capitalist! To paraphrase some of his presentation, “costs are too high for the private sector, which is interested in profit maximisation, rather than maximising public access”, and “local government should deal with the last mile”.

Tuesday night’s formal dinner, and ALGIM Innovation Award presentations, was followed by dancing to a great NZ 80’s band that got even me dancing. The conference, which included an annual light-hearted session – this year, “The Green Debate – are you ready for the Hemp Keyboard?” - finished with lunch on Wednesday, following prize-giving and a keynote from Rob Waddell, an Olympic Champion and NZ Champion Rower. Then it was time to say goodbye to many warm and generous new friends.

Cousins Reunited

2008-11-23T10:18:00.006Z

My cousin, Jonathan Steel, lives in Karaka, near Auckland, having emigrated with his family about 15 years ago. He and I hadn't seen or spoken to one another for over 20 years, but I 'phoned him a couple of weeks ago to tell him that Chris and I were about to visit New Zealand. He and Joanna, his wife, took time off work, and were at the Airport for the arrival of our flight at 11.00 on Thursday (20th November). I booked a campervan for the duration of our visit, as we planned to tour the country, following the ALGIM Conference. (Although, we'd have hotel accommodation at the Conference, it proved simpler to hire the camper for transport throughout our visit, rather than mess about with other arrangements.) Jon and Jo took us to the Hire Depot, and patiently waited while we completed the paperwork and had everything explained to us. Then Jon rode with me, and Chris rode with Jo, back to their house where we were invited to stay for the next two nights. Their Guest Room, however, was already in use by a friend of Jessica, their daughter, visiting from Thailand, so we were sleeping in the 'van. No shortage of space for parking, 'though, on their 6 acre plot! Then, the four of us visited Jon's local Pub – the ideal way to relax after a long journey, in my view - before returning to the house in time for Jo to help Jessica put her horse through its paces. Jo has been involved in competitive riding since before they migrated from the UK, and Jessica now rides dressage. Jo cooked us a lovely meal then, after a bit more catching-up with family news, Chris and I had an early night.

We spent Friday with Jon's family and, asked what we'd like to do, we chose a drive north through the lovely countryside to relax at a hot springs spa, stopping en-route for a fish and chips lunch (wrapped the proper way - in newspaper!) In the evening, I played ten-pin bowling with Jon and Chris at Jon's local Bowling Alley. Having bragged about how good I used to be, I was roundly beaten by them both. We rounded-off the day with a curry, and were joined by friends of Jon and Jo.

After breakfast, on Saturday, we said our farewells and headed off for the Wairakei Resort, Taupo, where the ALGIM Conference was being held. We drove via Rotorua and stopped-off at the "Rainbow Springs" Nature Park and walked around its various attractions - all in or around the springs – various species of fish, birds, trees and other flora and fauna, including, of course, kiwi.

Having arrived at the Resort, and booked-into our rather nice accommodation, Chris and I joined ALGIM Committee Members and other international guests at the House Bar, from where we were taken to dinner at the Beach Brasserie at Manuels Hotel on the Taupo lake-front. Lake Taupo is the biggest inland lake in the southern hemisphere, roughly the size of Singapore, and formed less than two thousand years ago in a volcanic explosion.

On Sunday the ALGIM Team and international guests had a 9.00 start for the day's sightseeing. We viewed the Huka Falls, and the Wairakei Power Station from various vantage points. The Power Station is the second Geo-Thermal Power Station to be built in the world, in the '50s. It currently supplies around 3.5% of New Zealand's energy, but 60% of electricity in New Zealand is generated by natural resources, and projects in-hand will see 90% of energy production for the North Island in Taupo. New Zealand is a "nuclear free zone", which was a brave move, antagonising, as it did, nations like the USA which was used to parking its ships at New Zealand ports, but is no longer allowed to as it won't say whether they carry nuclear material. We then toured up the Waikato River by Jet Boat, and crossed to the Orakei Korako Thermal Park – a "prehistoric" landscape of bubbling pools, geysers and other geo-thermal wonders. We powered back up-river in the Jet Boat - powered by twin 350 Chevvy V8 engines, developing 750 bhp between them - doing some "boat acrobatics" along the way. Apparently, the Jet Boat was invented by a New Zealander, named Hamilton, who wanted to reduce his 20 minute boat journey home from work as his local pub, in those days, closed at 6.00 pm! On the way back to the resort we stopped to see the 2.00 pm opening of the Aritatia Dam on the Waikato River. A condition of its planning consent was that it should be opened four times a day so the river could follow its original course. To stand downstream of the dam, and see the empty river fill, in a matter of minutes, to a twenty foot deep raging torrent is amazing. We returned to the resort to meet ALGIM's President, Mike Wanden, over drinks prior to the Conference Opening.

Holidaying in Hong Kong

2008-11-22T09:27:00.006Z

We landed in Hong Kong at about 4.00 pm on Sunday, and were in our hotel on Causeway Bay by 6.00 pm. Chris and I had arranged to meet with Wan Lik Lee, who we met at the Socitm Conference, on our arrival, and after we had freshened-up he came to meet us and took us out to see Hong Kong by night. We took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon, with the 8.00 pm Laser Light Show between Tower Blocks either side of the harbour in progress. What a fantastic introduction to the city! Some of the towers are already decorated for Christmas, and you can get some idea of just how spectacular it will be when they’re all in their seasonal regalia. Afterwards we took a taxi up to the Peak to see the famous City views (and photo opportunities) by night, and were (apparently) lucky to have arrived on an unusually clear day. After exploring the Kowloon Quayside as far as the Avenue of Stars, we returned to Causeway Bay, and Wan Lik took us to a local noodle café, which has served nothing but beef and chicken with noodles for 30+ years, for a supper washed-down by soya milk. It was the sort of place that, I’m sorry to admit, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to venture into without someone familiar with their surroundings but I was really glad we went there, and the proprietor fussed over us and seemed delighted at our enjoyment of his food.

On Monday, we boarded a west-bound tram close to our hotel, and stayed-on past the Western Market, which Wan Lik had advised us would be a great way to get an overview and orient ourselves to downtown Hong Kong. I’m not completely sure where we got-off, but we walked back through the bustle of the dried-fish market that was the original business of the Island, which had mesmerised us as we passed on the tram, doing our best to capture the atmosphere in photos. We made our way back to the Star Ferry Terminal, and stopped for a beer in the sunshine, with the temperature still in the low 80’s, before crossing, again, to Kowloon and catching the subway to Mong Kok, where we spent the afternoon wondering among some of the many conjoined markets, including the Ladies, Sportswear, Flower and Bird markets. On returning to the Ferry Terminal, we took the route direct to the Causeway Bay area, rather than Central, and were exploring our way back to the Hotel when Wan Lik contacted me on my mobile to say he wanted to take us to dinner on the famous Jumbo floating restaurant. This again, was not to be missed, and we enjoyed a sumptuous Chinese meal.

I awoke at four ‘o’ clock, on Tuesday morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep, so spent a couple of hours on e-mail. Chris and I spent the day at Ocean Park. The Cable Car ride along the coastline and cliff-edge, from the entrance attractions up to the “headland” and main park, is amazing. The park is well worth a visit for the Coral Reef, Jellyfish and other aquariums, and there is the obligatory, but well done, dolphin show, as well as some thrill rides. There’s also the Giant Panda Habitat, including a pair given by China on the 10th anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty. In the evening, Chris and I dined at the hotel, and then went for a walk around the locality. It really seemed a different world, to us, with its busy street cafes amid towering tenements. Many of the apartments have seemingly home-made verandas hanging to the sides of the buildings!

On Wednesday we arose reasonably early and went for a swim and a sauna at the roof-top health club. I’ve always been afraid of heights, but it’s the first time I’ve suffered vertigo in a swimming pool! We were booked to fly to Auckland on an evening flight and decided, the previous evening to check our luggage in early at the Central Rail Terminal for the Airport service, which Wan Lik advised us we could do. In the taxi, however, on a whim I decided we’d go all the way to the Airport, reasoning that the visits we planned were all in its vicinity on Lantau Island, forgetting that we already had train tickets, and what a long way it was. The extra cost wasn’t too great, as taxis in Hong Kong are quite inexpensive, but there were no early check-in facilities at the Airport, so we also had to pay to leave our bags in the Left Luggage for most of the day. Then we caught a bus to Tung Chung and got the Cable Car to Ngong Ping, where the world’s tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha sits atop the mountain. The Cable Car ride was long with spectacular views, and the Buddha and Po Lin Monastery were well worth the visit. From there we caught a bus down the mountain to the Tai O Fishing Village, known for its stilt houses in its main creek. Again – not to be missed, and more great photo opportunities. We caught another bus back to the Airport, and had sufficient time for a snack and a drink after collecting our luggage and checking-in for our flight.

Our first trip to Hong Kong was a fantastic experience. Apart from the incredible atmosphere of the place, one of the things that most affected me was the impact of the SARS virus. Quite a few people were still wearing respiratory masks. Hundreds died, and the outbreak turned Hong Kong into a virtual Ghost Town for 3+ weeks, which is even harder to comprehend once you’ve seen the energy and vitality of the place.

2008-11-17T09:20:00.004Z

You will have seen from Richard's blog that he and Chris are now in NZ for a well earned break as well as Richard attending the NZ conference. You will also have seen from Richard's blog that because of uncertainty Steve Hopson has asked to defer his Presidency year and the Socitm Board of Directors has agreed to nominate me as next year's President. I take nothing for granted however and regret the circumstances that have led to this situation. From a personal perspective however I have huge pride in and enthusiasm for the position and, if elected, will work to put members first, recognise regional agendas and continue the transformation of the Society.

Whilst Richard is away I will be taking a personal lead in working with Rose on establishing the Membership Board, moving forward discussions on what programme of events we want as a Society, continuing the work of the NAC and making arrangements for the AGM in April. Richard still has more than 5 months of his year of office remaining however and I (along with all of the other Directors) will be supporting the work that he has been so capably leading in restructuring the Society and increasing its influence.

If we all work to move the Society forward then we have a bright future both as a members orgnaisation and a thought leader/influencer. That requires we all work in the Society's best interests whilst recognising the significant diversity of needs, views and opinions about how we progress. I look forward to working with you all as we move forward.

Steve Palmer

On My Way...

2008-11-14T19:45:00.000Z

The Events Futures Working Group – Adrian Hancock, Ken Boxhall, Martin Fuggles, Steve Palmer and myself - met with the NCC’s Ian Jones and Kylie Smith at Camden Town Hall. We had detailed discussions about Socitm’s Events Management requirements and the ways in which the NCC could engage with us to provide an enhanced service. Our discourse was structured in the following five areas – Annual Conference, Regional Events, Ad-Hoc Events, Roundtables and special events like the President’s Dinner. We were keen to identify added value that will be achievable, including use of the sort of technology one would expect from a Society of IT Professionals, such as web-casting and electronic voting.

Further proposals will be developed based on the information discussed. We have started to think about an event to coincide with the date of Socitm’s next AGM, in April, with a probable theme around Social Responsibility, which may provide the “test bed” for a relationship.

After lunch Ken, Steve and Martin left, and Adrian and I were joined by Steve Markwell (NCC CEO) and Andy Hopkirk to discuss a broader Socitm/ NCC relationship. A number of potential areas of co-operation were identified. There’s potential for linking to the NCC’s Evaluation Centre to enhance our development of the Software Supplier Index being merged with Brent’s e-Gov Register, and there appear to be opportunities for bundling added member benefits on either side.

At the end of the afternoon, Adrian and I were joined by Steve Pennant, now of Capital Ambition (London’s RIEP), to consider its relationship with Socitm. The Capital Ambition Efficiency will comprise representatives of the various professional disciplines, including Finance, HR and ICT. ICT representation will come from a Socitm London sub-group to be known as the Socitm Transformation Group.

Steve explained his approach to ICT Strategy development. My concern is to ensure consistency with Socitm national policy and strategy developments. We need to ensure that there is adequate linkage between the Socitm (London) Transformation Group and Socitm Futures.
The emerging model is a good one, ‘though, and I hope that we can negotiate similar relationships with the other Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnerships.

I’m off, now, to the ALGIM Conference, with a few nights in Hong Kong, en-route, followed by touring New Zealand in a Campervan, before travelling home via San Francisco. See you in mid-December!

Welcome, Steve!

2008-11-13T17:41:00.001Z

My original intention for the Socitm President’s Blog was for it to be a President’s Team Blog. That didn’t happen, but we’re now taking a step in that direction! Steve Palmer, the next President, will become an occasional contributor to the Blog and, I hope, able to maintain and develop the facility – perhaps as a Team Blog? – when I step down. I’m also hoping that Steve can make his first contributions during my trip to the ALGIM Conference, and extended holiday, in New Zealand, although I’m also aiming to still make my own occasional contributions in this period!

The Chair of the Microsoft Public Sector Software Licensing Project Board contacted me to request that I do not make any further Blog reports of the development until a deal has been concluded. I don’t think I’ve written anything that’s at all confidential or controversial, and I do believe in doing the best I can to communicate the work we are undertaking in the name of public sector colleagues. I therefore regret the decision, but will comply with the request as I don’t want to compromise my ability to represent the local public sector on the Project Board.

There were to have been GC CoCo Exemption Committee Appeal Hearings today, but they were cancelled. Great! I got to stay at home and get up-straight with correspondence and ‘phone calls.

Me - a Philistine?!

2008-11-13T09:33:00.002Z

Now, it’s not just me saying that we need to address the insufficiency of IT skills in the work-force.

Monday
Siemens hosted a Socitm Futures meeting at its offices in Old Bailey.

The agenda included Nicky Stewart, from the OGC, on “Supplier Management Issues” – more effective strategic procurement – developing a standard Pre-Qualification Questionnaire and “Procurement Qualification Tool”. Better working between the Public and Private Sectors, supported by a “Joint Statement of Intent” between the (public sector) SRO (Senior Responsible Officer) and SIRE (Senior Industry Responsible Executive).

The project is using a tool, developed by Siemens, for modelling Desktop cost reduction, which sounded interesting. It is benchmarking costs, using Flex as the comparator. We agreed to explore alignment of the approach that’s been developed in Socitm, and offered our support to extend public sector penetration.

Having explained his role in supporting the local public sector support to adopt the security framework developed for central government, the CESG’s Kevin Hayes then presented on the “Information Assurance Maturity Model” and the “Security Policy Framework” that’s replacing the Manual of Protective Security (and available, now, for downloading from the CESG website). The usual discussion of pan-Government security alignment and vision followed, but the meeting was very supportive of the initiative.

At my invitation, Adrian Norman and Richard Quarrell attended to present “PSIPHON” – their project to create tools to automate the creation of registers of public sector organisations’ Information Assets, and create a market in the reuse of information, satisfying the relevant EU legislation, whilst providing commercial opportunities for information owners and a single search and retrieval source for those seeking information. It was agreed to set-up a small working group to explore how Socitm should help in this venture.

In July 2005, Socitm Consulting produced a briefing on the Directive on the Reuse of Public Sector Information, which stands the test of time.

Simon Norbury attended to provide an update on Government Connect and the CoCo.

The meeting finished with lunch, following which David Hopkins kindly allowed me to work-on at Siemens’ offices until it was time for me to pop-across to Euston for my train to Chester, where I was met by Steve Hopson, and stayed with him and Sue before Tuesday’s NW Socitm Regional Meeting at Tate Liverpool, at Albert Dock.

David Hopkins has accepted an invitation to serve on the new Member Benefits Board, which I neglected to mention, last week, will be chaired by Rose Crozier.

Tuesday
The theme of the North-West Regional meeting was “Managing and Accessing Information”.

Cheshire’s Par Esegobona (who, I’m glad to say, later joined the Region’s Committee) presented on “Building an Information Management Roadmap” from the perspective of the Cheshire County and Districts Councils, which are being reorganised into two unitary Authorities (Cheshire East & West) which come into existence next April. That context vividly illustrated the challenges of effective information management – ensuring information is available to the right person, in the right place and at the right time. (I couldn’t help reflecting that here was another application for PSIPHON.)

Simon Norbury had planned to travel up to Liverpool the previous evening, but as his kids were unwell (Chicken Pox) elected, instead, to travel up to Liverpool in the morning, arriving in time to present his Government Connect/ CoCo update, which resulted in a lively debate, and I weighed-in with Socitm’s rationale for supporting the programme.

I presented on the changes in Socitm, following which the sponsor – NetApp – presented “Tiered Storage or not Tiered Storage – that is the question” - its storage system and approach to de-duplication of data. I was unfamiliar with the company and its products, but quickly concluded they merited further investigation.

After lunch, Professor Barry Forde, from Lancashire University, and John Barrett, from Cheshire County Council, presented “Developing a NW Regional Communications Network”, based on the joining of Cheshire’s IP Network with CLEO – “Cumbria and Lancashire Education Online”.

Finally, Mark Wheatley, from Socitm Consulting, presented on “Developing the IT Professionalism Agenda”, which included details of Aspire.

The NW Regional AGM followed. Steve Hopson stood-down as Chair, and Cheshire’s David Crowe was elected to succeed him, with John Curruthers, from the Wirral, as Vice Chair and Denise Griffiths (Cheshire) Secretary. Steve remains on the Committee which Steve Jones (another Director) has also joined.

Those of us who stayed (mainly the organisers) had the opportunity to look around the Tate Gallery after the meeting. It started well, for me, with “The Kiss” by Auguste Rodin, who I’ve always been a fan of, on the ground floor. As we wandered up through the Galleries, ‘though, there were increasing numbers of more avant garde works that I completely failed to appreciate!

I was staying with Steve and Sue for a second night and we went out to dinner at a hostelry in their village where we bumped-into Chris Guest, who is Head of Technology & Improvement at Flintshire County Council, and a Socitm Past President.

Wednesday
Steve and I were up early to get the train back to London to attend a Directors’ Training Course at Old Sessions House, in Farringdon. Earlier this year, the Board agreed that all its number should ensure they were fully aware of their duties and responsibilities, and we eventually found this course that (nearly) all of us could make. Directors, Steve Palmer, Steve Hopson, Steve Jones, David Bryant, David Houston, Adrian Hancock and I were joined by Pam Larsen, Secretary, and Melanie Smith, Finance.

At first I enjoyed the frequent anecdotes, but as the day wore-on I found myself resenting the time that I could have spent on other things, and I had to agree, as other Directors had already opined, that the material could have been effectively covered in half a day. Nevertheless, I learned quite a lot, and think it’s a really good discipline for Socitm to make the commitment to the proficiency of its representatives. I also had the opportunity to get some advice about some of the issues we are dealing with in the wind-up of Caboodle Solutions in Newham.

Incommunicado

2008-11-07T23:14:00.000Z

The announcement of the Socitm 2008 Conference Photo Competition winners somehow passed me by, but details are here. Congratulations to all the winners.

Today, I worked at home – wrote this month’s President’s Report, which should be hitting your in-boxes soon, drafted my presentation for the ALGIM Conference in New Zealand and got up-to-date with correspondence.

Since I’ll be away from the office most of next week, then off to New Zealand for the Conference and holiday until 12th December, I’ve now set my out-of-office automated response for the next five weeks!

Have a good weekend.

Strengthening Socitm Social Responsibility

2008-11-06T23:40:00.004Z

Yesterday, I neglected to mention an exciting development, discussed at a breakfast meeting that Adrian, David and I had with William Hoyle, Chief Executive of CTT – “Charity Technology Trust”. William was representing CITRA – the “Charity IT Resource Alliance”, with whom talks concerning a merger with Socitm are at an advanced stage. In a recent EGM CITRA members agreed to the plan, which should see CITRA becoming a special interest group within Socitm. We are in the process of final “due diligence” and hope to make a formal announcement soon, for implementation from 1st January. We have also agreed cross-representation between the boards of Socitm and the CCitDG – “Charities Consortium IT Directors’ Group”, which is composed of the Heads of ICT from the major UK Charities.

The Socitm Board met today.

Steve Hopson, the Senior Vice President, had earlier advised us that, because of Local Government reorganisation in Cheshire (the county is being split in two from next April) he is unsure of whether he will be in a position to fulfil the duties of Socitm’s next President, taking-over from me in April. It was therefore suggested that Steve Palmer – the current second Vice President – should succeed me, which he has agreed with his employer, and Steve H will remain as Vice President for a further year. All subject, of course, to Member approval at our next AGM. The board supported these proposals. Whilst it shared in the personal disappointment that Steve H felt at the position in which he found himself, one of the reasons that we have three Vice Presidents is to enable us to cope with such circumstances, and the board was grateful to both Steves for their flexibility and pragmatism.

The Society’s budgetary position is continuing to improve, and there are signs that the new arrangements with Socitm Consulting are working well. David Houston presented the initial Base Budget for 2009, which has a number of important provisions supporting continued development of the Society and, for the first time, makes explicit provision for annual commitments, such as the President’s International costs(!) and office administration and training budgets.

The Business Plan for Socitm Insight was also presented. This now ensures that Insight picks-up agreed overhead costs of the Society’s support for its business, and requires a 15% revenue return to the Society. This approach is both more businesslike and fairer to Insight which, in the past, has had revenue contribution targets arbitrarily increased to help cover Society deficits!
The Board had also asked David to prepare a report back on progress made against the Affiliates recommendations (24th April, 2008). I’m very glad to say that this was extremely positive. I will provide a copy when I am certain that it has been endorsed by the affiliates (with some minor redaction of commercially sensitive information).

There was some discussion of the National Advisory Council and Socitm Futures, and of some confusion or misunderstanding of their roles. I am to write to their Chairs to clarify the position. In summary, this is that the Board runs the Socitm Business; the NAC is the primary body representing the Socitm membership, and responsible for nominating the membership of Socitm Futures - the Society’s research arm, and the body responsible for developing the Society’s policies.

We agreed to suggest to the NAC that it determines the membership’s policy priorities – probably by a survey – as we clearly don’t have the capacity to work on everything at the same time. Security, and vision thereon, is already the implicit top priority, and I would hope that will be confirmed. It’s important to note, too, that under its protocol for policy development, all policy proposals developed by Socitm Futures will also be subject to mandatory thirty days’ consultation via the Socitm website before they can be enacted by the Board.

I am also to request monthly progress updates to the Board from the NAC Chair.

At its last meeting, the NAC did ask the Board to nominate a Director responsible for Member communications. We are still in the throes of setting-up a Member Benefits Board, which will provide a natural home for such a Director but, in the meantime, we’ve agreed it’s me!

The initial report-back from the annual Socitm Conference confirms it was the most successful in a long time – in all respects, numbers attending, the exhibition, attendees’ and exhibitors’ feedback. Whilst we are, of course, delighted at that news (and congratulations, again, to the Events Team for a tremendous job) we can’t afford to rest on our laurels! The Board requested the recently appointed Events Review Working Party to present its specification of requirements, and a schedule for implementation of its recommendations, to the February meeting of the Socitm Board of Directors. Some of the considerations are – separate country conferences supporting the agenda of devolved administrations? A permanent venue for UK Conferences? Centralised support for regional events planning? Out-sourcing or partnership with other media and/ or events organisations?

A great deal of other business was covered by the Board, but perhaps the most noteworthy remaining item was that Shey Cobley, our Board Advisor until she is succeeded by Frances Kettleday, this year’s Graham Williamson Challenge winner, in April, will host a Board Workshop to consider how the Society should develop its Member Services to embrace its wider membership following the decision taken at last month’s EGM.

Intellect-ual

2008-11-05T23:55:00.000Z

Adrian, David and I all attended this morning’s “Socitm/ Intellect Local Government Supplier Forum”, which had as its theme “Government Authentication Services”. We are keen to bolster our support for this forum, consistent with our new membership model, providing “equality of membership” and desire to articulate a policy agenda that’s understood and shared with private sector colleagues.

Speakers were from the DCSF on the Employee Authentication Project and the new “Gateway to Educational Services” (GES) project, and Hampshire’s Ian Cooper presented a local government perspective on Government Authentication Services, and elaborated a number of challenges for all those who are working in the field, consistent, of course, with the need to develop pan-Government security vision and strategy.

GES aims to engage parents /carers and other stakeholders through a single secure infrastructure to support all related services delivery – such as admissions, attainment, transportation, school meals, course planning and grants. A generic online Free School Meals application was used to exemplify the GES approach. I thought this a little flawed, as it still required parents to apply for Free School Meals, whereas I understand that if they are in receipt of certain benefits - Income Support, for example - their children automatically qualify and could be passported through the process.

I had planned to stay for the Management Board in the afternoon, but left Adrian to keep our end up while I returned to my hotel room to deal with some correspondence and reports, including last minute updates to tomorrow’s Socitm Board agenda, agreed at yesterday evening’s session.

In the evening I attended the Computing Awards for Excellence 2008 at the Battersea Park Events Arena – the first time I’ve been there – it’s big! Rob Brydon did a great job as the after dinner entertainment and awards presenter.

Funnily enough, my evening started in conversation with Intellect’s Charles Ward – a fellow Computing Awards judge - who introduced me to John Higgins, Intellect’s Director General, and we agreed to meet in furtherance of a closer working relationship.

Stating the Blooming Obvious

2008-11-04T23:58:00.000Z

David Houston and I met with Gartner’s Nicola Bain to discuss our prospective relationship. Our present contract covers, primarily, the research service used by Socitm Insight. (Several of our consultants are at the annual Gartner Symposium, in Cannes, this week.) Socitm’s relationship used to include discounted pricing for the local government community, but this is now little used and, I am told, most authorities contract directly in their own right. If we are to rebuild our relationship with Gartner, my view is that it should support our policy development, and we agreed a further meeting, or telephone conversation, initially, with a Gartner strategist in furtherance of that aim. In addition, we agreed to exchange monthly updates on events planning in order to effectively plan opportunities for cross-marketing and representation.

I met James Lee, again, and his Legal Advisor, so that they could take me through the proposed contract for the PSMP before I submit it to Newham’s Legal Services for approval. Although not yet signed, its provisions, which provide Newham with a 50% share of net revenue in the borough, are now effective.

Following which, David Hopkins had asked if I would address Siemens Public Sector Management Team, at their offices in Old Bailey, on “selling to Local Government in times of uncertainty”. They got my interpretation of the environment that suppliers are now faced with, heavily laced with views of how we, with our industry partners, should be approaching issues like digital convergence and social networking.

I had arranged to stay in-town and meet-up with Adrian and David to prepare for Thursday’s Board meeting, and review the agenda and priorities going forward. We were booked-into the Bloomsbury Park Hotel, in Southampton Row, where we met in the bar and worked before and after dinner, finishing about 11.30pm.

I’ll include details of some of our discussion in the next President’s report, but it ranged over matters like succession planning, setting a budget for the Socitm office, commercial planning, marketing and incentivisation, and recharging of corporate services.

I’ve lost the link, for now, but did you read that the Prime Minister said, when commenting about the latest loss of a memory stick with some (encrypted) Government Gateway log-in credentials, that “total security cannot be guaranteed” (or words to that effect)? At last – stating the blooming obvious, but it means that we all must plan accordingly and think not just about making systems as secure as possible, but also contingency and how to respond if there is a breach.

And the Winner is....

2008-11-03T21:46:00.001Z

Well done, Lewis; well done, Felipe; well done, ITV.

After two days of meetings, at the end of last week, correspondence has backed-up, again. That took care of my morning.

In the afternoon, I attended the final stage of judging for the National e-Government Awards at the Cabinet Office, Admiralty Arch, with fellow judges - John Suffolk (Government CIO), Laurence West (KPMG), Paul Lankester (CE of Stratford on Avon District Council & representing Solace), Tony Singleton (Directgov), Suraj Kika (CEO of Jadu), Ray Whitehouse (Havering) and Chris Histed (Public Technology Limited) (who runs the awards).

There was surprising consensus in our judging undertaken independently online (which apparently is usual) and agreed the results for all eleven categories. I believe the shortlists will be announced on Friday. The Awards evening & black-tie dinner will be on 20th January, at the Guildhall.

Socitm Link to News Quiz Sensation!

2008-10-31T23:18:00.002Z

I'm a long time fan of the "The News Quiz" on Radio 4, so I was delighted when driving home listening to it, this evening, to hear a question whose root was in Socitm's Newport Conference. It concerned, of course, Harvey Mattinson's address in which he was reported as saying "claims from ministers that ID cards will help to prevent terrorism are absolute bunkum".

This morning I attended a meeting at BERR's headquarters at One Victoria Street to review work being done in the DAP (Digital Access Provision) Forum in the ALIP (Assisted Living Innovation Platform) programme. The meeting was chaired by Richard Allan – Cisco's Head of Government Affairs UKI, and formerly MP for Sheffield Hallam. (The Liberal Democrat Party Leader, Nick Clegg, succeeded him.) The other attendees were BERR's Richard Foggie and Ian Pannell, Ranjit Bassi from the BRE and Newham's Martin Scarfe.

We also discussed the ALIP2 bid, in which Newham and Westminster are slated to run a Dementia Pilot, and of which it is hoped that Socitm will become a member. I undertook to arrange presentation of the ALIP programme at a Socitm Futures meeting, and discussion of suggested roles.

We talked about the development of converged broadband infrastructure as the enabler for widespread deployment of Assisted Living Technology, which Richard Foggie described as "the new Cathedrals". "In the middle ages, in times of recession, the powers that be built cathedrals, which kept people employed for a couple of hundred years, and revitalised the economy." I trust that our "cathedral" won't take quite so long to finish!

A number of potential related developments were also talked about, including a technology showcase and new London Technology Park, in connection with which we agreed to do some stakeholder mapping to better inform our next meeting.

After lunch I met James Lee to discuss progress in the PSMP project. The usage figures, after less than four weeks, are already at the level forecast for month five of operational running. Several other boroughs are now keen to come onboard; the other four 2012 boroughs are initially being prioritised, following which London-wide roll-out is planned, working with TfL. We discussed different potential funding models and approaches to revenue sharing, as well as new applications and looked ahead to wider UK deployment. I will be proposing that Socitm Futures also looks at this development.

Vicky (taking the place of Ken Boxhall, who is on holiday) Rob McCarthy, Managing Director of Goss Interactive, and I agreed, after some debate, the Socitm Photo Competition winners. They'll be announced on Monday.

Planning to get IT right

2008-10-30T20:54:00.001Z

I spent the day at Boilerhouse's offices in Birmingham (Vicky's PR company, with her partner, Joe) in a workshop to consider the design brief for our new website. It should be able to do pretty well anything we want it to do, but that depends, of course, on us agreeing an effective design. Vicky, Adrian and I were joined by David, Diane and Pam, from the Socitm Office, Terry, from Socitm Consulting, and fellow directors David and Steve. We worked our way through a number of questions intended to help us identify some key requirements, and spent a while critiquing other leading websites, and those of some of our peers. Vicky and Steve recorded our agreed design requirements.

Our new CRM is the top development priority, so it's ready for the new membership year, starting 1st January. The CMS should be operational before the end of my Presidential year. The most resource intensive activities will be the migration of content and preparation of web-forms. I'm hoping, however, that we can get some quick wins by implementing in phases to deliver benefits like shared calendars.

Eating for England

2008-10-29T23:49:00.000Z

Geoff & I met with David Fitton, Google's Industry Head for the Public Sector to talk about Google Enterprise and Search. Initial thoughts were that Google Apps. could provide a cost-effective means of extending ICT benefits to manual workers. We were also interested in the Google Search Appliance for corporate search.

We asked about the prolonged Gmail failure that caused such embarrassment for customers in the US. "Google has learned the lessons."

I had lunch at Spiga, in Soho, with Bryan Glick, Computing's Editor, to discuss developments in Socitm, its relationship with Computing and the way recent stories have been covered.

In the evening I dined at Shepherd's, in Marsham Street, with Graham Palmer, Intel's UK and Ireland Country Manager and some of his senior management team. Other dinner guests were the Heads of IT from Tube Lines and UK Parliament. Our discussion ranged over infrastructure development, Green IT, wireless technology, tele-health and other developments in domestic technology and entertainment.

With the number of reported data breaches continuing to grow, yesterday, the UK Information Commissioner's Office called on CEOs to ensure there are robust arrangements for maintaining data confidentiality and security.

Digital Inclusion Action Plan Launched for Consultation

2008-10-28T23:58:00.000Z

For some time we’ve been waiting for the publication of the Digital Inclusion Action Plan that Paul Murphy announced back in April. Last Thursday, I heard that it was to be published the next day, although this did not seem to be picked-up in the news, so I’ve done a quick search, and here it is (for consultation). (Interestingly, www.digitalinclusion.org.uk is suspended.) Meantime, Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society & Media, has published an article on the subject, and the Welsh Digital Inclusion initiative is up for a top European award.

Speaking of which (awards) I spent all day judging, again. Vicky has given me a hand (thanks, very much, Vicky) and I’m nearly done for these latest rounds.

I don't like Mondays...

2008-10-27T19:41:00.001Z

Here is an excellent report of the StartHere event that I attended last week.

I’m exhausted, and it’s only Monday! I worked on LGC and e-Gov Awards all day, interspersed with trying to stay on-top of correspondence.

Martin proposed we establish and maintain a database of best practice and case studies – that have been through some sort of process of evaluation to substantiate benefits claimed – that we can refer to / refer Members to when requests for project information and evidence arise. That seems very sensible; another for the Action List. This would have made gathering our input to the annual Transformational Government Report, which Jos and I discussed this morning, a great deal easier. In the meantime, I have a great many awards submissions that Insight could review….

A More Productive Day

2008-10-24T17:40:00.002+01:00

The minutes of the Socitm EGM, confirming the momentous decisions on membership, are now on the website. (Member log-in required.)

Today, I worked from home, as I shall do on Monday and Tuesday – and started assessing entries for the e-Government National Awards, and the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards.

Three Teleconferences, today, would have wiped my day out, had they all been meetings I had to attend, but took only about two hours in total.

The first was with Steve Palmer, Steve Hopson and Adrian concerning Socitm Membership Benefits, properly establishing the Membership Benefits Board and implementing the new membership model. Steve P. had prepared a paper with initial thoughts.

I am anxious to ensure we also reflect the benefits that come from our ability to lobby and influence - not just on behalf of individual members, but also on behalf of their employing organisations - epitomised (off the “top of my head”) in our work on the Local Public Sector CIO & CTO Councils, Government Connect, the Microsoft Software Procurement Project, the Ocean Unified Computing Subgroup, the Public Sector Infrastructure Team, the DCSF Employee Authentication Service and DCLG and CESG Security Strategy and Data Sharing Guidelines.

We agreed a few of us would work on developing the “brochure-ware”. Adrian and David Houston are working on the administration with Bernard Gudgin. The new membership fee structure will be proposed to the board on 6th November. The new CRM system will be ready in time for invoicing at the beginning of January.

After lunch my Teleconference was with the Unified Communications Subgroup of the Ocean Procurement project – on developing the Government’s vision on Unified Communications. Jim Boyle, from the HMRC, who chairs the subgroup, circulated an initial draft vision that we discussed and added to, and a further version will be circulated. I’ll publish it to Members, once agreed.

Later I teleconferenced with Andy Collett and John Sweeney from IBM on Government security. This resulted from a conversation I had at the Socitm Conference. It made me realise that we need to get the industry onboard with our lobbying for the agreement of a sensible pan-Government Vision, so I’ve now asked for this to be put on the agenda for a forthcoming Socitm/ Intellect Meeting (5th November).

Today I’ve been in-touch with both SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) and the CMA (Communications Management Association) who we will be meeting with to discuss how our respective organisations will work together. Unfortunately, because of existing commitments, and the fact that I shall be attending the ALGIM (New Zealand equivalent of Socitm) Conference and taking an extended holiday from 15th November to 12th December, this can’t be until mid-December, on my return.

What with those, and a few other distractions, I didn’t actually manage to review all that many Award entries, but I at least finished the week feeling I’d had a productive day!
Have a good weekend, and don’t forget the clocks go back.

Don't Start Here, StartHere

2008-10-23T23:48:00.003+01:00

In my euphoria following the success of the annual conference, I forgot about this month’s President’s Report! Other than the conference itself, which has already been reported upon in various places, there isn’t too much to report, but much is now happening as a result of the decisions made at the Conference EGM, so I’m planning a fuller report following the Board’s meeting on 6th November.

The current global financial turmoil bolsters the case for government adoption of social networks. Well, they do say it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good!

My train was cancelled and I arrived really late for a meeting organised at Starbucks in Victoria Street, so I would be handy for a Microsoft Project Board Workshop ‘round the corner, which was cancelled, so, all in all, I had a wasted morning! I headed to Direct House and spent the rest of the day clearing correspondence.

In the evening I attended the 10th birthday celebration of “StartHere”, my favourite IT-mediated charity. There were presentations, in the Ground Floor auditorium, from Sarah Hamilton-Fairly – StartHere’s founder, Tom Hughes-Hallett – Marie Curie Cancer Care, Helen Milner – UK Online Centres, John Gillies – Citizens Advice, and Douglas Johnson-Poensegen from BT, our hosts, following which we went up to a Reception on the 34th floor. The presenters who followed Sarah all spoke of her tremendous energy and commitment, touched with a hint of madness(!) and StartHere’s consuming raison d’être, which I absolutely agree with. I hope we can now get StartHere onto the Public Sector Mobile Portal (PSMP) and will be taking this up at a meeting at the end of next week.

The motor that drives the revolving 34th floor observatory had broken-down, but the views were as spectacular as ever.

Reunion

2008-10-22T23:18:00.001+01:00

Feedback from the Socitm Annual Conference has been excellent. Here are four exhibitor’s remarks forwarded, today, by Elaine.

'...It 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'.

'...Many congratulations for a great show, we enjoyed it and again felt that the quality of attendees makes it a very worthwhile event for us to attend'.'... It turned out to be a very good event for us, with IT security being top of everyone’s agenda this year'.

'...We had a good event with plenty of interest; it's highly likely we'll be back next year'.

The first meeting of the Government Connect CoCo Exemptions Committee took place today, by Teleconference. Details are embargoed until letters go out at the end of this week, but the Committee was very pleased with the positive way Councils have engaged with the process and encouragement at the evident progress that’s been made.

Geoff invited me into a discussion with Vince Tooke and another colleague from TfL to discuss our respective Data Centre requirements and continued collaboration. Newham ICT’s initial hopes for the redevelopment of the Council’s Bridge Road Depot were dashed when the commercial offer for the land was considered far too low. However, it’s still intended to dispose of the Depot, and future Data Centre provision is still a key consideration.

I completed a Socitm President’s “Thought Leadership” piece to be included in the publication of Green ICT research by Local Government IT in Use magazine.

Shane and I had a meeting with a Steria representative at the company’s Holborn office to discuss Caboodle pension issues, and Caboodle’s final accounts. I hope to be able to report more in the near future.

Following which we met a former colleague – Steve Paxman – for a long-postponed reunion and catch-up over dinner. I got the train home and Chris, bless her cotton socks, met me at the station.

Making New Contacts

2008-10-21T23:47:00.000+01:00

This article by the Managing Director of the organisation that manages IP addresses in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia was published yesterday. It provides a short overview of the IP addressing system, and urges Government to facilitate the deployment of IPv6. “Governments are influential forces for Internet growth. Leading by example, governments can play an important part assisting in the deployment of IPv6. Where governments lead in creating an atmosphere of change and encouraging a landscape for safe and effective Internet development, the private sector will join.”

Adrian and I met with Steve Reynolds, Chairman, and Martin Ballard, Director, of the MDA (Mobile Data Association) at City University, in Finsbury. This was a very productive use of two hours, with agreements on sharing relationship-mapping to determine how we can best represent and support one another, MDA participation in Socitm GovX Spaces on Mobile Computing, participation in Socitm Futures and, potentially, reciprocal discounted membership fees for one another’s’ memberships. Other discussion was of joint events, the green agenda and mobile IT and public sector Case Studies. (Steve is an admirer of the Newham PSMP development.) We agreed to draft a Memorandum of Understanding as a framework for the relationship.

The MDA is organising an event, to be held on 13th November, on security relating to mobile payments, with broad representation from mobile industry stakeholders. However, the representation of public sector requirements was an obvious gap, from the Socitm perspective. Given our current focus on achievement of the GCSx CoCo, and the need to ensure that mobile data also complies with the requirements, Adrian and I suggested that Government Connect be invited to present its requirements at the event. We will try and ensure that Socitm is also effectively represented.

Back at Direct House, I had a short meeting with Martin Stobbs from Newham’s Audit Service, concerning the procurement of consultancies for the NTC project, and then was introduced to, and had a discussion with, Louise Delahoussaye, the new HP Account Manager for Newham.

In the evening I attended The Chemistry Club at Sartoria. It was a useful evening in which I got to make several new contacts, such as John Widowson, the GCHQ’s Director of Information Assurance in Government, and get up-to-date with other associates. The straight-talking John Moulton was the evening’s speaker. If I understand correctly, he predicted the financial mess we’re in when he last spoke at the Club a year ago. Anyway we were all ears for his views on where we go from here; it’s not good news, I’m afraid. Do you understand how “super senior credit default swaps” work? No, nor do AIG, or anyone else, apparently! “We need innovative bankers about as much as we want innovative pilots at the controls of our 747s.”

Running On The Spot.

2008-10-20T20:51:00.001+01:00

Towards the end of a lazy weekend, I was TV channel-hopping when I happened on a programme about Madonna – and she is 50. I checked the Internet, and so is the Barbie Doll! So, my Quiz Team was robbed on Byte Night, and I didn’t let them down as I was led to believe. There’s no justice in this world!

I see that the Government is halting flexitime reforms in response to the economic crisis, which is a pity. I can understand that the administration of such changes could represent a significant additional load, especially on hard-pressed small businesses but, in the longer term, I’m convinced flexible working arrangements will support greater efficiency.

I was interviewed, at the DCSF offices in Great Smith Street, as part of an OGC Gateway Review of the Employee Authentication Services project. This contributed to Gate 1 & 2 reviews. There were 3 reviewers (all from outside the DCSF). Once I got to the meeting (I was late being directed to it as the person I was told to ask for was on leave, and no-one had told the Reception staff I was expected) I enjoyed the discussion, which was my first experience of the OGC Gateway process – and it gave me the opportunity to expound my views about pan-Government security vision and a single Government Security infrastructure!

Since the conference, ‘though, I feel like I’ve entered one of those phases in life when one is running just to stay still – on top of which I’ve another 171 Competition entries to judge in the next week. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to take the weekend off!

Organising for our Customers' Convenience

2008-10-18T11:24:00.007+01:00

I spent Thursday catching-up with correspondence and all day Friday in Newham at an Employment Appeal Panel.

The latest copy of Local Government IT in Use magazine included Helen Olsen’s article, “Get it Right First Time”, which followed a survey of Councils who do not send “bounce” messages in response to misaddressed e-mails. This was prompted when Helen was frustrated when e-mails to my PA went unanswered because she got the address slightly wrong.

“This made us here at LGITU start wondering if this was ‘normal’ operations for a local authority email system. And if so, what effect could that have on citizen service – most pertinently, in relation to National Indicator 14, ‘reducing avoidable contact’.”

Helen therefore surveyed all Local Authorities, sending slightly misaddressed e-mails, to see how they responded. Sixty-four, like Newham’s, were not responded to. Newham has now changed its policy and sends bounce messages when misaddressed e-mails cannot be delivered, but the reason that it, and other Councils, previously did not is that nearly all such e-mails received are spam with randomly generated addresses. Responding to these e-mails validates the addresses and lets the Spammers know that they’ve found valid targets.

The exercise convinced Newham that it should change its policy – organising for the benefit of its customers, rather than for administrative convenience, but that got me thinking about other ways in which we can make life difficult for customers. Among my pet hates are the frequent failures, in our industry, to organise services for access online rather than by “traditional” means. Magazines, such as "Local Government IT in Use", typify this when they are produced as A4 landscape editions with print columns that mean you have to scroll up and down the page to read them. I, and I’m sure many others, generally print them to read – but that’s something we should clearly be avoiding in the names of efficiency and greenness. I asked Helen about this, and part of the answer was that people say it’s not something they want. (I do, please.) Part of the answer was to do with the extra cost that would be involved.

And there’s the rub; very often service providers are faced with decisions about convenience versus cost – in local government terms, higher Council Taxes or better services? Newham analysed the e-mails it received in one week. The results are below. (I don’t know what happened to Friday and Saturday. Presumably, the analysis was done on working days for the previous days.)

The first column in the table contains the total numbers of e-mail received. The second column contains those that are not immediately identified as Spam. The third is those that have invalid addresses, and the final column is the estimated number of those, following manual examination, that have invalid addresses, but are not deliberate spam.

Newham is just implementing the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server that has additional functionality to improve the detection of spam, including “probing” spam, but prior to that the manual effort involved in dealing with incorrectly addressed e-mails was reckoned at one full time equivalent per day. So, does the extra cost merit the added customer convenience? I’m still not totally convinced – I can request a “read receipt” if I want to know that my e-mail has got through, but there’s nothing I can do about magazine articles that I find inconvenient to read online!

Incidentally, Socitm also publishes material online in traditional formats. We have the same considerations of cost and customer requirements as Helen. I’d be interested in your views!