As reported yesterday, DCLG’s Local Digital Programme passed on the digital baton to a federally owned Local Digital Coalition prior to its planned closure on 31 March 2016.
This successful and popular programme has pioneered a range of digital discoveries and ‘proof of concept’ projects aimed at nurturing sector-wide collaboration around common user needs. So what happens to those projects now?
The programme team is to be congratulated - indeed it is testament to its collective enthusiasm and commitment - for safely handing over all projects and discovery collateral to central and local government project teams. Some projects will continue to be developed, all assets will continue to be freely available.
Council access to DVLA data
One of the Local Digital Programme’s key themes in 2014 was work with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to identify opportunities for its ongoing digital transformation. The programme’s latest ‘working out loud’ report outlines the learning from this discovery phase and highlights the significant benefits of unlocking council access to DVLA data.
Meanwhile, DVLA is exploring some of the discovery recommendations while building on newly available services, and is also keen to work with local government to develop services and APIs around taxi driver licencing and parking permits. Local Digital has passed all relevant resources on to the relevant DVLA teams and you can contact them here:
Central-local eligibility checking
How could digital eligibility checks benefits local authorities? This report of discovery findings from Local Digital research suggests that digitally enabled eligibility checks of key central government department data could save local authorities in excess of £100 million per year. Read the full report here.
DPA Calculator - Department of Health to take the lead
The Department of Health will be taking the lead on the Deferred Payments Assessment Calculator and is working with HSCIC (the Health and Social Care Information Centre) to roll the DPA calculator out across the sector and support further uptake in the future. Look out for further announcements and get in touch with the DoH social care finance team to find out more.
Local Waste Service Standards Project
This pioneering common service and digital standards project will be housed on the Local Digital Coalition site. The latest outputs will remain freely available, including the final business case, a video summarising lessons from the project and the procurement guidance document.
GOV.UK will manage the Local Links database
Moving forward there will be no change to how local authorities update their links for GOV.UK. The process will still go through Local Directgov Admin but be managed by the Government Digital Service (GDS). Current guidance is now available at www.localdigitalcoalition.uk/links-support
Locator tool housed by new Local Digital Coalition
This tool will remain as is, functioning as normal, however it will now be housed on the Local Digital Coalition website. You can access the tool here.
Local Digital Coalition
The Local Digital Coalition is a federal grouping of councils and national organisations for local government. It comprises the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the Local CIO Council, Socitm, LocalGov Digital, iNetwork, iStandUK, Warwickshire County Council, Bristol City Council, Leeds City Council, Luton Borough Council and the London Borough of Camden - with the latter providing secretariat support for the first year.
You can read the Coalition’s action plan here.
