There will be a presentation by Paul Maltby the Digital Director for MHCLG on the proposed Digital Declaration.
Minutes:
The Chairman introduced Paul to members, and invited him to introduce the item. Paul began with giving a brief overview of his role to Members.
Paul’s presentation to Members expanded on:
· The proposal for a Digital Declaration for local government and the reasons for it.
· Whilst a lot of good work had been done to transform public services using digital tools and technology it seemed this often appeared to be done independently of other local public sector partners.
· It was felt that many services were dependent on legacy systems tied to specific suppliers which potentially hampered fundamental reshaping of services delivering greater efficiencies
· MHCLG were looking to encourage all levels of government and public service delivery to design services around the needs of people based on standards and a set of reusable components and platforms thereby enabling organisations to work more effectively together.
· Paul stated he wanted local government to be a co-publisher of the Declaration; Paul emphasised the importance of this not being a top-down approach from MHCLG, but rather a partnership with local government.
The Chairman thanked Paul for his presentation, and invited members to comment:
· Whilst members expressed some support, in principle, for the ambition, they also had a number of concerns
· Members raised concerns around the language of the Declaration, which appeared to indicate a top down and one size fits all approach. Councils and the communities they served were all very different and the this did not seem to be allowed for;
· Members expressed concerns about the potential additional burden involved by the Declaration and the reference within it to designing services in conformity with national service standards;
· Members felt that it was more important that other Departments such as DWP, DHSC, etc with whom councils worked more directly on a day to day basis were fully signed up to the Declaration;
· Members questioned what practical support and resources would be available to councils to help them fulfil the ambition in the Declaration;
· Members suggested that the ambition would be hampered by the fact that broadband was not available across the country and many people were not digitally enabled. Challenges also arose as a result of the complexity of the way in which local public services were now often delivered through a variety of local partnerships
· It was also suggested that the key to better more customer focussed services was the removal of barriers to data sharing.
The Chairman thanked Paul for his time and Members for their comments.
It was agreed that officers should pursue the points made by members in any further discussions with MHCLG. If the LGA were to sign up to the Declaration approval would be sought from the LGA Leadership Board.