Another kerr-azy week of having too much to do and too little time and energy to do it. #
A short post I put up on LinkedIn (and published here and on Localiseā¬ as an archive) blew up in a modest way. It even attracted a comment on a blog post! Good heavens. Does feel like there is a gap here to be filled by something. #
Atika has started her CDO type role at Luton Council and she’s published the first blog postā¬ on the Council’s brand new blog in her first week! An inspiration to us all – this is how you impact on culture early. #
My concern is that the default solution to this type of reform will be more technology. However, we still have a greater need for more joined up systems that make better use of existing technology. This includes recognising that not all legacy technology is bad. Dare I say, even some of the pagers and the fax machines.
When we talk about a service, we mean all the things that government collectively provides to deliver an outcome for all of its users, through any path a user takes to reach their goal.
Nice roundup post of interesting thoughts and linksā¬ from my favourite anonymous local government blogger. I do like this freewheeling style, a link here, a thought there. Feels natural and authentic, and is the kind of thing I have been aiming for in this notes of mine, too. #
What do you believe about how the world works? Do you believe it works like a machine, that a cause always leads to an effect and that makes the world predictable? Or do believe it works in random ways, where sometimes a cause doesnāt have the expected effect and sometimes effects appear from unknown causes, that the way the world works is unpredictable and emergent.
These two opposite ways of seeing the world are often so deeply rooted that we donāt recognise them, but they matter. They matter when we run organisations the way we see the world. And they matter when we try to apply tools and techniques in our organisations. Our tools and techniques fit with one or the worldview, and they arenāt interchangeable.
Been trying to think of nice stories to tell about the potential for the use of data to really fundamentally change local public service delivery. The best examples I can think of tend to be in the prevention / early intervention space.
The one I am using A LOT at the moment is:
“Imagine you could identify certain wards in the borough where, if a household misses two council tax payments in a row, you know to send the Citizens’ Advice folk round to help them, because otherwise there’s a 50% chance that household will be homeless and needing emergency accommodation at the council’s expense”
It’s not perfect but quite good at getting the general idea across, I think. #
Last week I attended a jointly run LocalGovDigital and LGA session about the service standard and its uptake in local government. Perhaps not surprisingly, uptake has been low so far. Phil wrote about the session on his blogā¬.
Mark Thompson was there and he talked through his ideas, many of which I think are excellent. His focus on standardising back offices to help fund better local services on the frontline led to me making this point in the chat:
We’ve veered a little way from the service standard onto how standardised services and technology might help local gov with some of its problems – which is good, because solving those problems is what needs to happen.
But to wheel back to the starting point, could a local gov service standard be focused on helping to harmonise service design across the sector, so that it can be in a better place to adopt Mark’s thinking in the future, around shared back office capabilities?
In other words, as part of a service assessment: “Oh, you appear to have not followed sector good practice and decided to do your own thing entirely that means you aren’t going to be able to be a part of a more efficient future when we share stuff. What made you think that was a good idea, and how are you going to convince your rate payers that it is in their best interests?”
This report is in response to heads of IT highlighting challenges in recruiting, developing and retaining staff across all IT disciplines, and increasing pressures facing IT teams. All heads of IT (or equivalent position) in all English councils were asked to complete an online survey between October 2023 and January 2024.
Within software and hardware engineering, product management, user centred design and a myriad of other professional practices, there are known ways to make technology more resilient and reliable. Whatās missing is the rigour provided by matching enduring teams to enduring technology, to ensure these skills can be applied continuously.
Ever since the decline of Evernote as an ‘everything bucket’ I’ve lacked a decent option for a place to just save stuff – links, PDFs, anything I might want to come back to later. Have tried all the options and not liked any of them! Even venerable native Mac apps like Yojimbo and DevonThink have left me cold.
However Tom Steel’s postā¬ has made me take another look at Notion again, and it isn’t too bad. It has a browser extension for Chrome and Safari, and that saves a whole copy of the content of the page, as well as a link to the original, which is nice. Will see how it goes. #
Local Stuff for Local (Gov) Peopleā¬ really is my favourite blog at the moment. If you’re someone who is thinking about starting to blog but struggling to make the leap, this is such a good example of a new blogger just going for it – a real inspiration! #
I think my view on this is that there needs to be a standard used in local government, but the current one is not nearly flexible enough to cope with the constraints councils operate within. #
