Sprint notes #10
Covering 24 June -7 July 2020
Celebrating two years of the Local Digital Declaration
This July marks two years since the launch of the Local Digital Declaration, and to celebrate we are holding ‘Digital Declaration Month’. We’ll be using our channels to promote the amazing work of our signatories and to share the impact the Declaration has had on the Local Digital movement.
GDS has dedicated their June podcast to celebrating the anniversary, with May-N Leow as one of the guest speakers talking about the Declaration’s impact.
Our Cyber and Technology Lead, Ben Cheetham, has also published a blog post to share his reflections on the last two years and everything the Declaration has achieved.
How you can get involved
Whether you’re from a council, government department, public sector body, a partner or a supplier, we want to hear and share your story:
- Download our digital engagement pack for tools and resources
- Follow the campaign on Twitter #LocalDigital2Years
- Tag @LDgovUK in your posts
- Sign up to the Local Digital newsletter
- Email the Local Digital team at events@localdigital.gov.uk
Local Digital C-19 Challenge now open
The Local Digital C19 Challenge opened on 1 July and the application form is now available to complete on our website — you have until 15 July 5pm to submit an application.
A Slack Q&A session was held on 6 July and we have published the answers to your Challenge questions on our website.
COVID-19 bi-weekly local gov call (26 June)
Fraser Trickett of City of Lincoln Council led the last Friday call, during which he introduced us to using the Microsoft Teams Booking app for demand management. If you missed it, notes and a recording of the session are available to view.
We’ve decided to bring the COVID-19 calls to an end for now, but we’ll keep you updated and organise more events when needed. Thank you all for participating and attending the calls over the past few months.
TechForce19 call this Friday
For this Friday’s call, we’re hosting a special TechForce19 edition where we’ll be showcasing some of the TechForce19 winners — including Beam, Team Kinetic and RIX Research & Media / University of East London — and giving you the opportunity to ask your questions. The call will be at the usual time (2–3pm), but you’ll need to email events@localdigital.gov.uk to request joining details.
Cyber
The cyber team have performed 25 user research sessions, with a further 6 still to be carried out.
We’ve also reached out to several other government departments that have a similar mandate, including NHS-X, NHS Digital, MoJ Digital and the Scottish Government, to share our learnings on principles, standards and guidance within the sphere of cyber security and protecting satellite organisations.
What else have we been up to?
- we synthesised our research observations and findings
- we collated what we have learned into an experience map, to be validated
- we performed an affinity mapping workshop with external stakeholders to collaboratively analyse research findings and organise related research findings into groups
- we analysed impacts of previous malicious cyber attacks using case study and cost data
We’ve lined up two ideation workshops with external stakeholders, which will take place during the next sprint:
- Opportunities and Problem Exploration — to review the findings of the discovery and use our research to identify the biggest problems and opportunities.
- Ideation and Solutions — to create and suggest solutions to the opportunities and problems we identified in the first workshop, and decide which to take forward.
Join our next Cyber Catchup this Friday 10 July at 11.30 for more information, and don’t forget to subscribe to our cyber newsletter.
An update on our Funded projects
Our funded projects have been busy as well!
During the last sprint, the Reducing Invalid Planning Applications (RIPA) project team published a blog post on Maps and on their Wider Engagement Strategy. They also hosted their second interactive Show and Tell, which gave an update on how they’re progressing with building a new way for people to apply for householder’s planning permission. A recording will be available to watch on their website soon.
The Income Management System (IMS) project hosted a second Show and Tell to share their proposition for a future IMS and to ask for feedback. The recording is available on YouTube if you want to see what the IMS proposition looks like and the different ways to adopt it. The project is also working on a new website — it’s still a work in progress but you can take a first look. Finally, there is still time to contribute to the survey about their IMS proposition!
Our Housing Repairs project has closed their supplier opportunity on the Digital Marketplace. They received 16 applications from suppliers and are now busy shortlisting. The project is hoping to appoint a delivery partner and kick off delivery in the coming weeks! Drop us a line at fund@localdigital.gov.uk if you’d like to follow the project more closely or get involved.
The Back Office Planning System (BoPs) project held their sixth Show and Tell this sprint. The team is more than halfway through their beta and they have already managed to integrate their future platform with GOV.UK Notify (amongst other things). Catch the latest Show and Tell recording or visit their website for more information.
The Drupal code sharing project is now in the second sprint of their Alpha. Read their Sprint notes and check out the code on GitHub. The project is also looking for user research participants, so get in touch with John Waterworth at DXW if you’re willing to share:
- how you currently develop your sites
- how you manage content
- how you make platform choices
- what’s working and not
- what it’s costing (roughly)
They’d especially like to talk to Drupal councils, but are still interested if you’re using a different platform.
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