Evolve 2012 Presentation Slides

  You can download a copy of the slides I used for my presentation from this link

Local Authorities on the Cloud

An inspiring presentation by technology one's executive Adrian Di Marco. A strong advocate that the Cloud is the way forward - big companies are moving in this direction, start up businesses are going straight to it and consumers are already using it. Great benefits for local government to now get on board with this transition. Rather bravely they demonstrated a version live with the software hosted on servers on the west coast of USA - impressive. Next theme was simplicity defined as straightforward elegant. They are about to introduce "Apps" linking to their software, so that an an employee might have an App on their smartphone which would enable him or her to access their payslip, book leave or self certify sickness. Other Apps for different stakeholders.
This was an excellent presentation and I would describe Adrian,who I had some time with later in the day, as the Steve Jobs of local government new technology applications. Who knows he might do the next presentation in blue jeans and a black polo shirt.

How about starting a bank ?

I had a very interesting conversation with a representative of the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. No big banker's bonuses or call centres in this bank. It is owned by the community and operates on a franchise model. Profits from the bank are invested back into the community with the community deciding where they should be spent.

As we already own the RBS maybe it could be transferred to community ownership? Definitely feels like an idea whose time has come in the UK.

"Community Bank is an innovative franchise program in which the local community owns and operates a Bendigo Bank branch (which is separately incorporated) and Bendigo Bank provides all the banking infrastructure and support. The community company and Bendigo Bank share all branch revenue with whatever is left over, after the company pays its branch running costs, remaining as profit. The program was a response to the massive closure of bank branches in rural areas. Bendigo Bank has since extended the program to areas that have bank service."

CIOs the same the world over

Meeting with chief information officers (CIOs) from Australian local authorities facilitated by Technology One their software supplier. Many similar issues to those which you would get from UK equivalents. Getting more from existing systems, running change programmes, improving productivity, move to on-line services, integration across Council etc. Wanting to learn together and share information. Not the same imperative to shrink or redefine the services or to move services out of public sector through commissioning. As always clarity of vision and the role that new technology can play to support vision, not lead it, is a critical issue. Technology One have a clear vision for integration "One Council" aErewash were teased about cloud based developments for the future. If we want One Council then my view is that it's not CIOs who need to drive this but chief executives.

A lesson from public conveniences

Some years ago when I held a more junior management position I worked for a local authority who at that time needed to make savings from its annual expenditure. ( some things never change! ) This authority provided and serviced an amazingly high number of public conveniences and it was not difficult to persuade the elected members that they could make a saving by closing three of these. However, I spent the remainder of the year trying to reach agreement on which three from the multitude should be the ones to close. I learnt a valuable lesson from this. It is often easier to get agreement on the general principle than it it is to get agreement on the application of that principle. 

This experience has recently come back to mind. The government has committed to a smaller state and reduced public expenditure. Not just because financially the country needs to but because they believe this to be the right approach to government. My observation is that it is not uncommon for those who sign up to this policy and strategic direction as a general principle to be the first to object and stand against its application to any given set of circumstances. Local Authorities are often the ones who are the sharp end of applying this policy change. It appears to me that as they apply the general principle to the specific circumstances they often face opposition from the advocates of the policy. Still, there never was a rule that we have to behave logically and consistently.