This looks like an important read – the first from from the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee on Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government: Our inquiry identified four building blocks for successful digital transformation, and four barriers…

A digital standard for local government

The service standard has had a difficult time getting traction in local government, as a report from the LGA made clear – and this despite councils theoretically committing to it when they signed the digital declaration. But when Atika asked…

James Plunkett – Could the NHS leapfrog the rest on public sector digital work?: I want to argue, however, for a more ambitious framing: that over the next five years, the NHS could leapfrog others in the public sector, and…

I am LOVING Kev Rowe’s continued blogging about the low-code digital platform development at Luton, some of the thinking behind it, and how it ties in with the corporate strategy for the town: … we’re building towards a more complete…

One of the most interesting and exciting things about the LGR digital Playbook project is the vision for it to be as community-led and informed as possible. The aim is to get as many people involved as we can, to…

The latest resource in the Local Government Reorganisation Digital and Cyber Playbook has been published – Digital and cyber leadership during transition: Research by the Local Government Association (LGA) is clear that strong, early and visible leadership is one of…

Like most people, I don’t often need to interact with my local council, and so – given the way I make a living – I tend to take notice when I do. Recently we got an email with an invoice…

Really good post from Kev Rowe on the Luton blog about how the team are preparing for the rollout of the new Netcall low code platform. Lots of learning of lessons from previous experience as well as tapping into the…

GDS Local have published the first iteration of their architecture for (digital) local government. It looks at this stage like very high level, simplified enterprise architecture. It will be interesting to see where it goes next. I worry about architecture…

Disaggregation doesn’t have to mean total separation!

Following the announcements last week of the shape of local government arrangements in various areas, I’ve had to rethink things a bit. The move is clearly towards merging and empowering districts over centralising into unitary counties. This means an increase…

Will Callaghan shares A new flatpack collaborative model for the public sector: The goal was to identify a ‘flatpack model’ which would make collaboration as easy as going it alone. There are currently 317 councils in England still building or…

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…

Missed this first time around, but there’s some interesting stuff to think about in here – Courage is required for GDS Local to succeed. There is currently both a real opportunity and a grave danger facing local government in England…

New post from Atika on the Luton blog – Full steam ahead! New posts filled, skills assessments, meeting room envy, change agents and champions and AI Club. What a start to 2026!

📅 Weeknote w/e Friday 30 January 2026

January has felt like a looooong month, and I haven’t really enjoyed it. Doesn’t feel like I am remotely up to speed after the festive break, still! So tired. So very tired. This week’s worky highlights: Getting some of the…

Mahad Kalam – The UK paid £4.1 million for a bookmarks site: The UK Government recently unveiled its ‘AI Skills Hub’, which wants to provide 10 million workers with AI skills by 2030. The main site was delivered by PwC…

Laura Czapiewski – Why human trust shapes AI success: The psychology of digital has never been more important than now, in the age of AI. There are countless examples of where AI has proved to be far more reliable than…

A roadmap for modern digital government: Our plan to build a modern digital government that works for you – making life easier, driving growth and delivering smarter, more efficient public services

Terrific list of recommended posts from Steve Messer.

AI is not a strategy

AI is not a strategy, it’s a tactic. Once all the fuss has settled down, we will be in a position where specific AI tools are useful in specific circumstances – it won’t have “transformed” anything. We had exactly this…