At the centre of this year's Socitm Spring conference will be the launch of Planting the Flag, a comprehensive, highly collaborative and much-anticipated strategy for ICT-enabled local public services. The launch follows extensive consultation on the draft version of the strategy, known as the Routemap for Local Public Services reform - enabled by ICT.
It's a first: there has never been a template to guide the deployment of ICT to modernize the delivery of services across the local public sector before, let alone one conceived for a citizen-driven public sector. In this strategy ICT is much more than a utility or a support service – it is an agent of change, a centre of innovation and a stimulus for improved service and greater efficiency.
Although it speaks for the whole local public service, the perspective comes from local government – the constitutional source of local democratic participation; local government should beat the centre of reform of local public services. The scopeis deliberately 'pan-local', covering public service provision regionally and sub-regionally through local authorities, emergency services, health, education, and the civil society sector. There is a core assumption that these services must collaborate as never before, across agencies, with businesses and with communities. ICT provides the means for this in ways never before possible - to re-design, and to innovate in the way services are designed and delivered
Planting the Flag is a Local CIO (Chief Information Officer) Council initiative led by Socitm on behalf of all local public services. It fills a vacuum in local public service planning and is intended to for elected representatives and senior managers responsible for local public service reform, as much as it is intended to help CIOs and heads of IT. Notably, it provides a distinctly local perspective on the recently published Government ICT Strategy, giving a clear and practical interpretation of how national policy and technology planning translates at the local level.
The strategy has two purposes. The main purpose is to anticipate a world where significantly more value is derived from ICT in the way it supports service delivery. This is about using technology to modernize public services; to enable shared services; to drive greater efficiency in delivery than ever before; and to do so in ways which are more 'green' and sustainable. Harnessing the power of technology to transform whilst managing the risks associated with IT is a fundamental challenge which cannot be left to IT professionals alone. That is why this strategy is intended for a wider audience. The public sector must embrace ICT as a strategic tool, not just as a support service.
The second purpose related to technology – about new ways of reducing the costs of ICT itself, consolidating spend, standardization, commoditization of IT, streamlining delivery and taking advantage of new technologies such as 'cloud', open source and social networking. But each of these are tools, not solutions. These will be delivered through an appropriate mix of local, sub-regional, regional and national solutions.
Planting the Flag sets out a destination and gives leadership, but it is not prescriptive. It recognizes that 'one size does not fit all' and it calls on local public services to work together to capitalize on local strengths and existing investments wherever possible. It defines the ground to be covered, and provides the tools to navigate the journey. At the same time this is not a 'free for all' – common approaches and scale matter, and organizations in different localities must now come together and use the strategy to change the face of local public services for local communities.
Under Socitm's leadership, Planting the Flag has been developed in open and wide consultation across the public, private, and civil society sectors. It is the very diversity of challenge, views and purposes which this strategy seeks to bring together. It builds on work done by SOLACE, CIPFA, the Institute for Government, the RSA Commission for Public Services 2020 and others, on the future of public services. It also draws on a strong body of evidence-based research on ICT-enabled reform of local public services, compiled by Socitm over the last 10 years.
The next phase which we are calling Planning the route, will develop more details plans exploiting the best practice which exists across the UK and is often, at least at a local level, unseen.
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Quelle/Source: Public Service, 19.04.2011
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