Thursday 9th December 2010, QEII Conference Centre - Central London, 08:30 - 16:15
Local Government ICT: Achieving Efficiencies Through New Strategies and Solutions
EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT OFFER: 10% off all registrations received by 5pm Friday 1st October 2010.
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Overview
Over the coming years, Local Government ICT faces major financial and operational challenges, with public expenditure cuts expected to be at least 25%. As a result, local authorities will be looking to make efficiency savings across services. Over the last two years, local authorities have had to find real-term spending reductions of 5.75% per user, whilst ensuring the quality of the user experience.
The impact of spending cuts will be felt across the public sector, and in order to make savings, councils will need to share ICT resources between a wide range of partners, refine user access channels and integrate back office provision across partnerships. Open government will lead to a more transparent procurement process. With ICT commissioning broken down into smaller projects, small and medium sized organisations will be able to bid more effectively to build and manage ICT services and allow the public sector to make greater savings.
With the future of major national ICT projects under threat, local government and the wider public sector needs to clarify how it should respond and invest over the next five years. The role of the private and third sector in delivering ICT projects is expected to grow with the Big Society, and local authorities will need to utilise these partnerships to deliver more with less.
This forum will provide delegates with guidance from well-established and innovative ICT strategies from local authorities around the UK, including detailed technical, operational and procurement insights. In addition, this day brings together national policy makers and experts known for driving the ICT efficiency agenda across the public sector.
Agenda
| 08:30 |
Registration and Coffee |
| 09:20 |
Morning Chair’s Welcome Address Bryan Glick, Editor, Computer Weekly (CONFIRMED)
|
| 09:30 |
Understanding the Scale of the Financial Challenges Facing Local Government ICT
- Clarifying the size of the savings demanded and the timescale for delivery
- Placing ICT in the centre of the your organisational efficiency initiatives
- Where will the bulk of ICT-related savings come from?
- Using web-based access channels as a tool to deliver efficiency and choice to the service user
- Clarifying the future of the large scale ICT projects: Public Service Network, G-Cloud and National Programme for IT
Representative, Cabinet Office (invited)
|
| 09:50 |
Sponsorship Session
Speaker tbc
|
| 10:10 |
Questions and Answers Session |
| 10:30 |
Applying the Lessons of G-Cloud to Your Authority – New Methods in Software Sharing and Delivery
- Initial assessments of the security, reliability and efficiency of G-Cloud
- Practical insights into the implementation process
- Reducing the number of datacentres and other infrastructure needed to deliver a top performing ICT function over the long term
- Integrated G-Cloud technologies into your existing electronic delivery system
- Embedding an integrated managerial function across your shared ICT services
Ian Osborne, Director, Digital Systems Knowledge Transfer Network, Intellect UK (CONFIRMED)
|
| 10:50 |
Integrating Your Back Office Functions and Other Functions Between Local Providers to Reduce Overlap
- Preparing a cost evaluation for your ICT strategy
- Collectively setting group priorities and procedures of efficient ICT delivery – What can be forgotten?
- Implementing informational rights in practice - Who should own personal and operational information for routine back office functions?
- Empowering service users to take responsibility of their own service delivery pathway - An efficient solution?
- Using transparency and information sharing as a tool for improving service efficiency
David Wilde, CIO, Westminster Council (CONFIRMED)
|
| 11:10 |
Questions and Answers Session |
| 11:20 |
Coffee and Networking |
| 11:50 |
Innovative in Practice - Shaping User Experience and Integrating Services Through ICT to Realise Cashable Savings
- Ensuring your management and control processes are transparently defined and recognised across your partnerships
- Defining avoidable contact and implementing successful strategies to reduce it for your organisation and extended partnerships
- Identifying the cashable savings within the integration and sharing of your user-facing ICT function
- Ensuring your main website drives the efficient access of both your services and your partners’ services
- How can you utilise user education and engagement to optimise the delivery pathway of care and other services?
- Implementing an innovative and interlinked user experience across multi-sites
- Efficiently connecting with younger people through social media-centred campaigns
Geoff Connell, Chief Information Officer, London Borough of Newham (invited)
|
| 12:10 |
Using ICT to Target Unpaid Debt, Under-utilised Corporate Resources and Other Operational Lags to Increase Efficiency
- Defining what can be achieved via greater ICT led innovations your corporate resource management
- Redesigning your allocations strategy to build in efficiency algorithm
- Automating your administrative checking processes
- Ensuing your automated processes remain responsive to change
Martin Ferguson, Head of Policy, SOCITM (Invited)
|
| 12:30 |
Questions and Answers Session |
| 12:50 |
Lunch and Networking |
| 13:50 |
Successfully Managing Efficiency-led Changes in Your ICT Function – Leading Your Organisation Through Challenging Transitions
- Avoiding bunker thinking through good change management – Managing major cuts in your ICT function
- Engaging staff fully in the process to create champions of the change process in your organisation
- Meeting the expectation for 20% savings in back office functions
- Changing the culture of ICT usage to ensure all partners can access back office functions effectively
- Creating a culture of transformation within your ICT function
- Overcoming the operational barriers to an effective ICT-led transformation
Dylan Roberts, Chief Information Officer, Leeds City Council and Chair, SOCITM (invited)
|
| 14:05 |
Optimising Your Use of Human and Corporate Resources in Your ICT Strategy to Deliver Efficiency and Improvement
- Applying the most efficient approach to your ICT deployment – embedded teams, interdepartmental ‘hit-squads’, shared teams or outsourced teams?
- What are the key skills to develop, prioritise and maintain?
- How can an engaged community and workforce systematically identify operational efficiencies
- Preparing for future challenges - What technologies and skills will shape the future of ICT?
Michael Whitehouse, Chief Operating Officer, National Audit Office (CONFIRMED)
|
| 14:25 |
Questions and Answers Session |
| 14:50 |
Coffee and Networking |
| 15:20 |
Understanding the Future Trends in Local Government ICT and How Your Organisations Should be Responding
- How is the infrastructure of ICT evolving away from the desktop?
- How should a public organisation prepare for a shift towards better informed, engaged and connected service user landscapes?
- Will a shift to open-source software achieve long-term efficiency? – Lessons from a Linux-based network
Representative, Warwickshire Direct (invited)
|
| 15:40 |
Closing Keynote: Analysing How ICT Must Respond to the Reduction in Funding
- Can new technology and managerial techniques achieve the cost efficiencies demanded – Lessons from the private and third sectors
- Balancing quality vs. costs concerns when reducing ICT spending
- Ensuring your organisation has a fully developed business continuity plan in place to manage efficiency savings
- Reducing the costs associated with your ICT services – Are there lower cost solutions for the essential hardware and software
- Working in new ways ensure your ICT function can make rapid use of software innovations
Steve Palmer, Head of ICT, London Borough of Hillingdon (Invited)
|
| 16:00 |
Questions and Answers Session |
| 16:15 |
Chairs Summary and Close |
*programme subject to change without notice
Audience
Delegates attending this conference will be from central government, education, social care and business sectors specifically, directors of property, heads of facilities, commissioning directors, heads of procurement, heads of estate, research and development managers, heads of innovation and development, head of IT &, heads of business development, social care directors, communication & marketing directors, technical directors and project directors.
