MHCLG: replicability is key benefit sought as first 16 Local Digital Fund projects announced

The potential for replication of best solutions for common services and processes has been a key factor in selecting the first batch of local authority projects for funding, Linda O’Halloran tells Vicky Sargent.

Observers surprised that some of the projects selected for funding under the programme – eg managing missed bins, providing taxi licensing services or dealing with FoI requests - are not at the forefront of innovation are missing a key point.

The Fund is not about blue sky innovation, but rather about ‘fixing the plumbing’ of everyday services by making it easy for all councils to replicate a good digital solution that has been proven elsewhere.

Take missed bins. Many councils have worked out good solutions for the particular context, collection practice and supplier set up that operates in their patch. But such solutions cannot easily be replicated elsewhere because typically they won’t integrate easily with back office systems and processes operated by other authorities and the technologies used by their collection contractors.

Local Digital Funding is for creating, testing and documenting solutions in such a way as they can be easily plugged in anywhere, rather than being reinvented endlessly to accommodate 300+ different local set ups.

Find information on the 16 projects funded (ten ‘discovery’ and six ‘alpha’)

Find details of all projects submitted

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On 6th February 2019 we will be making five programmes about 'smart lives' in front of a studio audience. You could be in front of the camera or in our expert audience.

10.30 - Coffee and Registration

11:00-11:40 – Smart Employment (Sponsored by TBC)
Re-thinking life-styles and life-choices, planning work-life balance in This Smart Life. Recruiting for this smart life. Retaining employees. Managing the remote workforce. Work as state of mind not as a place of labour. An end to commuting, to traffic congestion, to particulate pollution. Hard tech servants, soft tech services. Voice bidable things and the Towers of Babel. 

12:00-12:40 – Health & wellbeing – The Caring Home. (Sponsored by Pinacl Solutions)
Fitting IOT sensors to dwellings and so improving the health of the occupants not only improves the lives of citizens but can also save local authorities, social landlords, and health and social care services money. Retro-fitting the sensors can work and is worth the effort but getting the fibre into the ground at the start of new build developments is essential. Knowing what to do with the raw data once it starts to flow back up the pipeline is key. With guest panelists Roy Grant Head of super connected cities and digital innovation City of York, Mark Lowe, Strategic relations director Pinacl, Nick Hampson, CEO Karantis 360

13:00-13:40 – Data and security (Sponsored by TBC)
Getting buy-in from the public, standards in public cyber behaviour, empowering the citizen, the well-warned society, data-literate management and workforces

14:00-14:40 – The DroneZone - City Airspace Management (Sponsored by Dedrone)
This programme is being sponsored by Dedrone, with guest panelists Amit Samani of Dedrone and Elaine Whyte of PwC. Further details on content will be published in due course.

15:00-15:40 - This Smart Life - Round Table (Sponsored by TBC)
Chair/host TBC. Five guests and our host debate This Smart Life - "too damned smart or not smart enough". Guests include Darren Capes Intelligent Transport Systems Policy Lead at Department for Transport; Linda Chandler Founder Hyperlocal Cities formerly Microsoft Smart Cities Lead based in Singapore and for eight years the Microsoft Architect for Smart Cities initiative and Dr David Greenfield, founder of SOENECS, Chartered Waste Manager, Fellow of the CIWM, Fellow of the RSA, Associate Member of the ICE and Chartered Environmentalist.

All this takes place at 58 Victoria Embankment (the NESTA building) two minutes walk from London Blackfriars Station. Cameras are rolling by 11:00am and it's all over bar the handshakes by 3:40pm. Lunch and refreshments? Of course. But let’s be frank, it’s the quality of the brain food not the sandwiches that make this the single most useful ticket for those shaping the future of UK local public services.

An Audience with CLGdotTV is now running eight times a year. We invite a studio audience of around 50 to join us to make five CLGdotTV programmes. There are no power-points and the questions and interventions from the floor are valued as much as much as the panellists' contributions.

Some guests stay with us for just one programme and some stay for the lot. It’s a logistical nightmare but somehow we make it work. Each programme is broadcast on CLGdotTV. Plus we edit a 30-40 minute video summary of the day’s conversations with clips from all the debates.

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Got a theme for 'An Audience With' or a programme idea? Wish you could be a studio guest? Want to tell the world about something relevant to our themes or topics? A seat in the studio on panels or in the audience is by invitation. Contact Ben Webber b.webber@boilerhouse.co.uk  View a programme from An Audience With CLGdotTV No.2 (on local digital servcies) and from An Audience With CLGdotTV No.3 (health and social care)

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