From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 October 2008 14:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: E-Government Bulletin, 10 October 2008: Socitm expands horizons; Obama iPhone app; Redbridge Conversation.
+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 274, 10 October 2008.
- A Headstar Publication
http://www.headstar.com .
IN THIS ISSUE: Socitm expands horizons; Obama iPhone app; Redbridge Conversation.
Please forward this free service to others so they can subscribe - full details at the end. We never pass on email addresses.
++Special Notice: Techno-Footprint: ICT and Sustainability in the
Public Sector
27th November 2008, New Connaught Rooms, London Early bird price until 17 October http://www.headstar-events.com/techno08/
The Cabinet Office's 'Greening Government IT' paper sets a deadline of January 2009 for central government to address the impact on carbon emissions of all new ICT procurement; and larger councils will face significant financial penalties if they fail to meet carbon reduction targets from 1 January 2010 onwards, when a carbon trading scheme comes into play.
Headstar's second annual conference and exhibition on ICT and Sustainability in the Public Sector is a must-attend event, offering practical advice on reducing your IT footprint. Our fantastic speaker line-up includes Caroline Lucas MEP, recently elected as the first ever leader of the Green Party; Catalina McGregor from the Ministry of Defence, a department spearheading environmental activity in IT; and Chris Head from Socitm Insight.
Registration normally costs £295 + VAT for public sector workers and
£395 + VAT for private sector, but register before 17 Oct for a £100
reduction:
http://www.headstar-events.com/techno08/
[Special notice ends].
++Issue 274 Contents.
01: Socitm Set To Broaden Scope Across Public Sector
- Vision to be unveiled by president Richard Steel.
02: Obama Becomes Second Politician To Use iPhone 'App'
- Smartphone tool turns supporters into campaigners.
03: Online Wins Over Paper In Redbridge Consultation
- Higher response for internet budget exercise.
News in Brief: 04: Phone Service - Newham mobile push; 05: Green Deficit - IT pros fall behind; 06: TV Democracy - Birmingham initiative.
Section Two: Interview - Socitm President Richard Steel.
07: Society Comes Of Age At 22: At next week's Society of IT Management annual conference in Newport, Wales, president Richard Steel will outline a vision to expand the organisation across the public sector and create a highly structured career path for public sector IT managers in a new era of professionalism. Dan Jellinek spoke to him ahead of the landmark event.
[Contents ends]
++Special Notice: E-Democracy '08
- One Month To Go - Don't Miss Out!
http://www.headstar-events.com/edemocracy08/ .
The UK's biggest and best annual conference on 'E-Democracy' is back for a fourth year, with a range of unmissable speakers. Anyone with an interest in connecting with communities; consultation; e- participation; or campaigning should register.
Confirmed presenters include Mark Byford, Deputy Director-General of the BBC; Bethan Jenkins, Member of the Welsh Assembly; Andy Williamson, head of the digital government programme at the Hansard Society; James Crabtree, Trustee, UK Citizens Online Democracy; and Tom Steinberg, founder of MySociety.org. Partners and supporters include the Hansard Society, Cisco and the London Borough of Redbridge.
Plenary sessions, networking and lively workshops combine to create the buzz that always surrounds this event. Fees are £165 + VAT for public and voluntary sector and £215 +VAT for private sector:
http://www.headstar-events.com/edemocracy08/
[Special notice ends]
++Section One: News.
+01: Socitm Set To Broaden Scope Across Public Sector.
The Society of IT Management (Socitm) is to broaden its scope beyond local government to the wider public sector, changing its membership at next week's annual conference in Newport, Wales.
In an exclusive interview with E-Government Bulletin ahead of the conference, Socitm President Richard Steel said this week the changes, to be voted on at an extraordinary general meeting of the society, will embrace a vision of local government as just one player in an interdependent web of 'local public services'.
A new membership model for the society will also place professionalism and career development at its centre, creating clearer career paths for IT managers.
One key area where a new more active partnership with central government must be made to work is in developing Government Connect, the secure computer network joining local authorities with central government departments, Steel said.
"We are trying to work closer with government, as a critical friend. In the past, they have almost just used Socitm as a mouthpiece, to announce things for local government through us, so we've said look, we'll work closer with you, but we're not going to be a passive partner, we'll be an equal partner."
Socitm will also change its constitution to embrace other local public services such as police and education, Steel said. "The reality is we work as a local public sector, and increasingly it does not make sense to just work as local government.
Other changes will include full voting status for its private sector members for the first time. For the full interview see Section Two, this issue.
+02: Obama Becomes Second Politician To Use iPhone 'App'.
Barack Obama's US Presidential election campaign team has launched an application for the Apple iPhone aimed at turning more of his supporters into active grassroots campaigners.
The 'Obama 08' feature (
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/iphone ) combines networking tools with news and information. The 'app'
organises contacts by state, allowing the user to prioritise those in so- called battleground states whose votes are predicted to be close. The program can also record which friends have been contacted, their voting preference and whether to call them back. Call stats are logged and can be compared against other users nationwide.
The application also provides information on ways to contact and get involved in the campaign locally, details of the nearest offices and of events in the local area. It also connects to news, media and information about the issues, biographies of Obama and John Biden and their policies.
The Obama campaign has already been praised for its innovative use of technology, using sites like YouTube and Facebook and announcing the candidate's choice of running-mate to supporters by text message.
The internet was crucial in Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries earlier this year, with a fully-developed website up and running from the moment he announced his candidature and used heavily to raise funding and organise the campaign ( http://www.barackobama.com ).
Obama is not the first to use the iPhone in campaigning, however: in July 2007 the former candidate for the Republican nomination Ron Paul produced a campaigning app just days after the first iPhones came on sale in the US.
+03: Online Wins Over Paper In Redbridge Consultation.
An online citizen consultation exercise undertaken by Redbridge Council between May and July 2008 has achieved a significantly higher response rate than a paper exercise run in parallel, a new report has found.
The council offered several ways to take part in the 'Redbridge Conversation', online, in person at events and on paper. Some 3,200 people responded online to the consultation, about 68% more than the 1,900 who returned a paper form that was posted to every house and distributed in public places such as leisure centres.
The 'conversation' asked residents to tell the council what their spending priorities for the council would be and an online budget simulator was used to help participants balance the books ( http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/conversation/youchoose/ ). The most popular choice for investment was school improvements (selected by
61 percent of respondents) followed by recycling (53 per cent) and leisure (49 per cent).
The results have now been published (
http://fastlink.headstar.com/redb2 )
and are being considered by the council's capital programme panel, a cross-party body that will decide on options for long term investment.
The panel is expected to make its recommendations to the cabinet in early November.
A separate analysis of the results by pollsters YouGov found the exercise had "gone a significant way" towards accomplishing its goal of conversing with the public and assessing their views about future investment and funding priorities:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/redb3 .
++News in Brief:
+04: Phone Service: A new web service has been launched by
Newham Council to make it easier for residents to access council services on a mobile phone. As well as allowing residents to carry out many of the tasks available on the council website such as reporting graffiti, the service adds a range of local information from transport to pub reviews. The site can be accessed by texting the word Newham to 65101, entering a mobile number online to receive a special text or typing this address into a mobile browser:
http://www.mynewham.mobi .
+05: Green Deficit: Only around a third of IT professionals (40 per
cent) are taking action to contribute to their employers' environmental strategies despite almost all (98 per cent) stating they are in favour of such schemes, according to new research by IT company Parity. Some 40 per cent of IT workers claimed behavioural and cultural change present the greatest barrier to the implementation of green initiatives:
http://www.parity.net/ .
In November Headstar will host its annual conference on green IT in the public sector, Techno-Footprint:
http://www.headstar-events.com/techno08/ .
+06: TV Democracy: Digital democracy will be one of the focuses of
Local Democracy week (13-17 October) in Birmingham this year. The city's 'Looking local' interactive digital TV channel, which is available through Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview, will allow interactive digital viewers to get in touch with elected representatives using the 'red button'. The events are being run by Digital Birmingham, a city-wide partnership which promotes IT to communities and businesses in the city, and who have been responsible for a number of initiatives including the creation of a virtual Birmingham in the online world Second Life:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/bham3 .
[Section One ends].
++Special Notice: Designing for all: an inclusive approach to web,
print and electronic publishing
- A practical, one-day training course and document clinic
- Wednesday 3 December, RIBA, Central London http://www.headstar-training.com/dfa/ .
Trainer: Katie Grant, former publications manager, Disability Rights Commission.
'Designing for all' is a practical course designed to introduce organisations to the importance of designing accessible, easy to read information for a range of different audiences including older people, people with disabilities and people for whom English is not their first language.
It will help you assess current design and content of information - please bring examples to our document clinic. The course will be of interest to anyone who is involved in the design and delivery of information in print, electronic and web formats. To book a place see:
http://www.headstar-training.com/dfa/
[Special notice ends].
++Section Two: Interview
- Socitm President Richard Steel.
+07: Society Comes Of Age At 22
by Dan Jellinek.
The venue of this year's Socitm annual conference is the Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales - home to the next Ryder Cup in 2010. This could be apt considering some major events will take place behind the scenes at the conference, shifting and expanding the society's scope and influence more significantly than at any previous stage in its 22-year history.
A series of expansions of the society's vision will see it look to embrace the wider public sector, following a vision of local government as just one player in an interdependent web of 'local public services' as propounded by this year's president Richard Steel.
Steel, CIO of the London Borough of Newham, is an energetic and unconventional character who has seized on his opportunity of one year at the Socitm helm (from April this year) to help steer, alongside new chief executive Adrian Hancock, a series of radical policy changes.
An extraordinary general meeting in Newport will vote on a resolution to introduce a new membership model for the society in which will place professionalism and career development at its centre, creating clearer career paths for IT managers.
Alongside this a fundamental shift in the society's thinking will be signalled by a resolution to enlarge its scope and membership beyond local government to central government and other parts of the public sector that work closely with local government.
"It is an opportunity to recruit new members and focus on how we can deliver for the public as government as a whole," Steel told E- Government Bulletin this week.
"We are trying to work closer with government, as a critical friend. In the past, they have almost just used Socitm as a mouthpiece, to announce things for local government through us, so we've said look, we'll work closer with you, but we're not going to be a passive partner, we'll be an equal partner."
One key area where a new more active partnership must be made to work is in developing Government Connect, the secure computer network joining local authorities with central government departments, he said.
Local government has already worked with Government Connect to put together a package for councils to join the network, but some features such as the arrangements for data security are still too complex, he said.
"The government tends to do tactics in the absence of strategy. At the moment you can find as many different security 'leads' in government as I've had hot dinners - - we need to develop a vision of where it is we're going with security, and throw our weight behind one of them.
"We'll say we'll tell you what's wrong with Government Connect, we'll tell you what will actually work. We want to present a united front to citizens."
The vision favoured by Steel would see access to information handled completely through a single system of verifying who someone is and what they should be able to access, rather than any transfer of data from place to place. "It's a different way of looking at it. We might need file transfer in the short term, but let's move towards this vision."
As well as closer links with central government, the new Socitm will change its constitution to embrace other local public services such as police and education, Steel said.
"The reality is we work as a local public sector, and increasingly it does not make sense to just work as local government - we should see it as local public services and central government. The NHS for example doesn't seem to realise that local health trusts are more identified with local councils in their area than with other health service bodies. And the latest absurdity is that we've got Government Connect and a separate NHS network- why does the health service have to have a different one?"
Does Steel think Socitm will be treading on anyone's toes by expanding its empire into other parts of the public services?
"We don't think so. There are some smaller organisations, such as in the charities sector, but not big representative bodies. We're filling a vacuum."
Socitm has even asked the government's chief information officer John Suffolk if it can expand Local Government CIO Council formed by the society at Suffolk's request in April this year to the Local Public Sector CIO Council, Steel said.
All this adds up to a great deal of work, and there is more to do, Steel said. "It is a lot, but a lot needed to be done. We've been too reactive, not proactive."
Other projects include development of IT project benchmarking for councils so management teams can assess if they are drawing proper value from infrastructure projects, Steel said. "Weneed to challenge our businesses to see if they are using the infrastructure we're providing. IT should not just business-led, we should be business leaders."
The society is also developing its website and other services to encourage greater involvement in its work from its members, he said.
The private sector will get more of a look-in as well: private sector members will become full voting members, replacing their previous non-voting status as 'subscriber members'.
"There has always been some controversy about different membership classes - do we see the private sector as money-making machines or do we want to see them as partners?" he said. "This is about working more efficiently with the private sector. We have to recognise they are stakeholders and have to have a vote."
In modernising itself local government IT services also need to engage more with young people and get to grips with new tools such as social networking, Steel said.
Socitm already issues an annual travel award, the Graham Williamson Challenge, to a young professional starting out in their local government career, and the winner now automatically becomes an advisor to the society's board, he said.
This year's winner was Shey Cobley, a communications officer from Oxford City Council, who visited India in June and July 2008. Shey chose India because it was the largest democracy in the world with a fast-growing IT industry, but her trip to view e-government projects was not straightforward: at one point she was stranded in rural India by a caste uprising.
Local government needs more input from adventurous people like Shey, Steel said. "She has come to board meetings and will carry on coming until March." She will be party to some fascinating discussions, in the year that Socitm comes of age.
[Section Two ends].
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ISSN 1476-6310
+PERSONNEL
Editor: Dan Jellinek.
Reporter: Majeed Saleh.
Associate Editors - Derek Parkinson, Mel Poluck.
[Issue 274 ends].
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