On the benefits of a bit of external scrutiny

I have had the pleasure over the last couple of years of being a member of Woking Council’s Digital Design Authority.

This is a group made up of a few senior members of the digital team at the Council, the relevant portfolio holding member, as well and myself and a few other independent folk with experience of this kind of thing in local government.

It was set up by Adam Walther, and carried on by Anita Flavell after Adam’s departure for Lambeth, to provide a bit of critical friendship to the Council as it sought to improve various elements of digital service provision – from the website to telephones, from its use of data to the opportunities of AI and automation – at the fraction of the cost of contracting with a ‘transformation partner’ or similar.

We simply meet up every month, and have a chat about progress, and discussion upcoming decisions, asking the odd difficult question but also sharing experiences and what has worked well (and not so well) for us all previously.

It provides the Council with a bit of assurance that it is doing the right things, in the right way. It also provides the lead member with confidence that officers are doing everything they can to ensure the best use of funds to deliver on the promised outcomes.

It seems such an obvious thing to do, I wonder why more councils don’t also do it!