A Daytrip to Belfast

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

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?

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

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

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!