Oct 17, 2022
Sprint Notes #57
29 September 2022–12 October 2022
Welcome to Sprint Notes #57! In this issue, find out how to apply for Round 6 of The Local Digital Fund, read about our new pilot opportunity and hear the latest updates from our funded projects.
News from the team
Round 6 of the Local Digital Fund is now open for applications
The Local Digital Fund aims to help councils transform their digital services in line with the Local Digital Declaration.
We’re looking to award approximately £2.5million in funding for Discovery, Alpha or Beta projects that will:
- solve a common local government issue
- make local government services safer, more resilient and cheaper to run
To be eligible, applications must meet the eligibility and assessment criteria outlined in the Local Digital Fund Prospectus.
Applications are open for 6 weeks from Thursday 13 October until Thursday 24 November 2022. All applications must be submitted using the application forms on the Local Digital website by 5.30pm on 24 November.
For more information and to put your questions to the team, join our webinar on Wednesday 19 October, 11am to 12:30pm.
Find out more in our latest blog then visit our website to apply.
Announcing a new pilot opportunity for councils
Over the past few months, we’ve been working with colleagues at councils to think about how we can further help local government realise the ambitions of the Local Digital Declaration.
We’re delighted to announce that, as part of our next phase of work, we’ll be piloting a new opportunity called Future Councils.
Future Councils will be a partnership with a group of councils that will take a whole-council approach, delivering replicable pathways to digital and cyber security reform that other councils can follow.
You can hear more about Future Councils at our Round 6 webinar on Wednesday 19 October, 11am to 12:30pm or by reading the end of our latest blog.
News from our funded projects
SEND top-up (Bristol City Council)
At the end of September, the project team held a successful refinement session.
This phase of work will finish on Thursday 10 November so the team are anticipating an intense couple of weeks as they wrap things up.
Housing Repairs Service (City of Lincoln Council)
The Housing Repairs Service development team is currently agreeing the required API access with NEC for the Housing Management System, NEC Housing. Once an agreement has been reached, access will be given to the NEC sandbox environment.
To ensure continued viability, the project team is thinking about what the future will look like for the service. On Tuesday 1 November, a collaborative virtual workshop will be held between the councils who are using the service to discuss:
- a potential continuous funding application for an additional development phase
- the service’s development roadmap
- the preferred governance model for the service
- support wrap options for the existing service
- what business model is the best fit to ensure that the service can be self-sustainable
If you represent a council who are interested in engaging with the project and would like to attend this session, please email leon@localdigital.gov.uk.
Future Work Design (East Riding of Yorkshire)
At the start of October, the project team gave a presentation on their comms and marketing plan that they created with Eski. They are now looking to hold a workshop to discuss the branding of the tool.
Family Context (Stockport)
The project team have continued to discuss the challenges to accessing datasets on a local, regions and national basis. In their team meeting at the start of October:
- Stockport’s Steve Kilroy-Jones talked about the work needed to clean data and in particular understand address data in a meaningful way
- The team discussed whether there was enough existing legislation to convince data owners to be supportive in requests to access data. There are examples of good data sharing and governance which could perhaps offer a level of confidence to data owners
- John Medley-Hallam (SocialFinance) talked about the progress from the London partners led by Greenwich
- The team reflected on the universal need for a place to pull live data enabling specialists in Adult Care, Health and Housing to make rapid care decisions, which will deliver better outcomes for those most in need of help
Task Management for Neighbourhood Planning Services (Colchester Borough Council)
With the project complete, the team continues to discuss amplification of the tools across Microsoft’s network.
Children’s Placement Portal (Birmingham City Council)
On Friday 7 October, the Children’s Placement Portal project team submitted their beta application, through the continuous funding framework.
An application review session will be held by the assessment panel on Tuesday 11 October, followed by a panel interview on Friday 14 October.
Digital Inclusion Toolkit (Leeds City Council)
The project has come to the end of their Local Digital funded phase of work. The project team has achieved their agreed outputs and will continue to seek funding from other sources. The website will be updated by members of the team on a voluntary basis.
Scalable Approach to Vulnerability Via Interoperability (SAVVI) (Tameside and Sedgemoor Councils)
In early October, the core SAVVI team participated in a facilitated session to explore progress of the project and next steps for self-sustainability. This provided a good foundation for the SAVVI leadership meeting where Phil Swann, Director for Digital at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and representatives from DLUHC, the NHS, Tech UK and local authorities met to discuss co-authorship of the new SAVVI declaration. There was some great initial feedback in the session and now further feedback is being sought from attendees.
That’s it for this sprint, thanks for reading! For the daily download on all things #LocalDigital, be sure to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and the DLUHC Digital Blog.
