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The pipe problem
At Public Sector Online (which Elaine did a marvellous job of writing up on the LP blog) last Monday, the question was asked – as it often is at these events – what could be done about the fact that…
Dave Briggs
An online notebook
Dave Briggs
An online notebook
Update on the Knowledge Hub
I spent an enjoyable afternoon at the advisory group for the Knowledge Hub (KHub) last Tuesday (sorry for the delay in writing this up…). Steve Dale chaired the day which featured a number of updates about the project, in terms…
Innovation in Public Services: Small is Beautiful
An interesting item on NESTA’s website, with some accompanying useful resources, summarising the recent launch of the ‘Small is Beautiful’ paper on innovation in local government. NESTA supported the Local Government Information Unit to analyse the entries to its ‘Small…
What is the Knowledge Hub?
The Knowledge Hub is an ambitious project by Local Government Improvement and Development (what was the IDeA) to provide two main things: a new platform for the Communities of Practice to replace the rather clunky current one; and to provide…
Enhancing Local Democracy
Today Learning Pool are exhibiting at the Enchancing Local Democracy conference, organised by South East Employers. There are some interesting speakers on the agenda, and the workshops look good too – especially the one in the morning run by Catherine…
Reflecting on Local by Social
I wrote up quite a bit of what was said at the Local by Social event yesterday, but didn’t add much in the way of comment or analysis. This post makes up for that. I’ll try and sum up what…
Rounding up LocalGovCamp YH
LocalGovCamp Yorkshire and Humber was a great day, superbly organised by Ken Eastwood, Kevin Campbell-Wright, Melanie Reid and a host of helpers. It was by a mile the least involved I have ever been in one of these events and,…
Let’s Talk Central
This week saw the launch of a new local government digital engagement project – Let’s Talk Central by Central Bedfordshire Council. The Learning Pool online innovation / social media / loafing around team – that’s me and Breda – were…
Webchatting in Kingston
Being part of something big is really nice sometimes. Take being on the Learning Pool team, for example. Now, quite a few people read this blog, and my gibbering on Twitter – but really, relative to the number of councils…
How digital engagement can save councils money
…is the title of a startlingly well written and interesting paper from Anthony Zacharzewski of the Democratic Society. Download it here (PDF warning).
Hack Warwickshire
Warwickshire County Council‘s approach to open government and IT strategy is impressive. Check out their IT strategy blog, where they detail their use of the cloud, for example, and their open data site. Great stuff, and good to see it…
#lgworkforce – Sharing management successfully
Chris Elliott, Head of Transformation at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and High Peak Borough Council shows how to make the most of a joint chief executive, how to bring services together to save costs and how to best spread best…
#lgworkforce – Buckinghamshire’s Organisation Redesign Programme
Gillian Hibberd, Corporate Director for People, Policy and Communications, talks through how their change process was planned and supported, and how staff were engaged. OD is aligning structure to objectives – form following function. Many orgs struggle to easily define…
#lgworkforce – Implementing a major organisational transformation
Melanie Wood and Catherine Griffiths from Birmingham City Council talk about how to take £450m out of the budget, addressing the workforce implications and creating new ways of working. Birmingham is the largest local authority in Europe – £3.4b revenue…
#lgworkforce – Successfully redesigning your organisation
Duncan Brown, Director of the Institute for Employment Studies, provides some lessons from research, what works in practice and pitfalls to avoid. How many major reorganisations have we all been through? Lots and lots, it would seem. Not many seem…
#lgworkforce – Welcome & Introduction
Andrew Hancox, Director of Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands introduces the day. The money really does seem to be running out in local government Leaked CLG memo – 40% reductions. Leaders and managers need to consider how their organisations operate.…
Designing a fit for the future organisation
I’m at the IDeA-organised ‘Designing a fit for the future organisation‘ event today, in Birmingham. It’s all about organisational redesign and development, and how councils can help meet the challenges they face by changing the way they work. There are…
What Learning Pool is all about
In case you didn’t know…
Using social media in learning
A question was asked in the social media community of practice (various levels of authentication required) about using web 2.0 technology to support learning. I couldn’t help myself… Blogging Using blogs to record and share learning is a really nice…
Transformed by You evaluation
I wrote about the Transformed by You project, run jointly between Kent and Medway Councils, here. By all accounts it was a great event, and thanks to the great social reporting efforts of David Wilcox, we can all get a…