This is a recent presentation I gave at #OpenBrighton on the need for innovation, open source and disruption in local government IT

1. Open Brighton
How Camden is Building Government as a Service
& Why Open Systems & Disruptive Approaches are
Essential
John Jackson – CIO Camden Council
(@johnjackson1066)
camden.gov.uk

2. camden.gov.uk
Life Before Austerity

3. Camden
• Local Authority in centre of London
• Over £1Billion turnover
• Circa £350 M controllable spend
• Over 24,000 businesses
• Over 220,000 residents
• Circa 5000 employee’s
• 600 plus different lines of business
camden.gov.uk

4. camden.gov.uk
Context
• Like all Councils we must save £150 M between 2012-
2018 from our bottom line
• At the same time we need to deliver fundamental
transformation to tackle inequality, foster economic
growth and deliver citizen centric services
• The challenges becomes harder because social and
economic pressures are mounting as people live longer
and populations expand & Citizen expectations of
government services are rising driven by a
transformation of consumer experience
• We cannot deliver this without innovation and this drove
us to rethink our approach to Digital Strategy

5. The focus of
today’s
presentation is on
three key areas in
our Digital
Strategy:-
camden.gov.uk

6. Citizen Driven Services
Integrated
Patient Care
Across
Sectors
camden.gov.uk
Early
Intervention,
Improved Life
Chances
Seamless,
Multi Channel
Transactions
via citizen
account
Accelerating
Connectivity,
Code Clubs
& business
account

7. Citizen Driven Services
camden.gov.uk
Using Customer
Insight, Understanding
Consumption & Costs
to Deliver Services
Differently,
Integrating,
Collaborating
Efficiently - Multi
Agency / Cross
Sector Teams
Digital by Default
Workforce ,
Mobile,
Paperless &
Digitally Wired

8. Reimagining Government Driven by IoT
Big Belly Bins
– Waste
Management
camden.gov.uk
Toilet Flush
Sensors –
Independent
Living
Smart Parking
Bays -
Enforcement
E-Tourism &
location
based
services,
Digital Ads

9. Digital Engagement
Crowdsourcing Citizen Facing You Cut
camden.gov.uk
Dashboards &
Open Data

10. Building Government as a Platform for
to transform the Public Sector
- Digital by Design, Open by Default
camden.gov.uk

11. The Problems
• Govt doesn’t have a lot of money
• Existing applications are largely proprietary
• A disproportionately small number of vendors
dominating the market
• A lack of API’s / Standard Web Services to enable
automation of govt business processes
• A very small open source eco system in local
government
• Lots of cynicism about the art of the possible AND
• I got the blame for badly designed , poorly performing
vendor systems!!!
camden.gov.uk

12. On the Plus Side
• Local government is full of creativity and
passionate people
• There are Centres of Excellence in the digital
community (e.g. LG Markers)
• Many Council’s have retained in house digital
capability so not starting from scratch
• There is an appetite to be radical, innovate and
think differently that wasn’t previously there
camden.gov.uk

13. Disrupt the UK Software &
Disrupt
Medieval
Markets
camden.gov.uk
Services Market
Lets not be shaped by
products we don’t
need but lets reshape
the market so its
delivers digital
solutions we do need

14. Procurement Strategy & Digital Opportunity
• Joining-up together across local and central
government as part of a national procurement strategy
for IT
• Driving a consolidation of frameworks and routes
to market making it cheaper, less confusing and easier
to buy IT & Services
• Incubating fresh approaches / thinking into
procurement through multi sector collaboration
• Making the procurement process simple, low cost
and effective so more gets delivered for less (&
quicker)
camden.gov.uk

15. Procurement & Digital – Why it Matters
• We spend a lot of money every year on IT –The LGA
estimates that Local Authorities spend £2.5bn each year on ICT,
with £1bn (40%) of this spent on software applications and
related services– at a time of austerity we need to make every
pound count
• More importantly this spend needs to enable digital
transformation - so we save an awful lot more money -
because the majority of government spend (and therefore the
savings & growth potential) lies outside of IT in innovation and
applying digital to processes, people and assets (95-97% of
controllable Council spend compared to 3-5% on IT)
camden.gov.uk

16. What Cross Govt Collaboration is Delivering
• Economies of scale and increased vendor leverage from
aggregation of demand
• Fresh thinking, competition and innovation from new market
entrants
• Collective interventions are shaping the market so it delivers
solutions we need for digital innovation rather than flogging us
standard products that don’t deliver this
• Marbling in the tech standards that deliver the next generation
Digital Govt Services (Openness, Interoperability, API’s, SDK’s
etc)
• And now many suppliers I’ve spoken to are looking to include
/ develop API’s / Std. Web Services in their products
camden.gov.uk

17. BitCoin
camden.gov.uk
The Power of Open API’s
Why bother automate
banking when I can just
replace banks through
API’s?
When we apply this to
government its means lets
not just automate govt but
instead reimagine
government through API’s

18. Service
Oriented
Architecture
(SOA)
camden.gov.uk
Architect for Flexibility
Why should government
be locked into proprietary
software designed for a
different era
Lets take control of user
experience, business
process and data storage
through SOA.

19. Harness the Potential of Open
camden.gov.uk
Source
Why pay for the same
stuff time and time again.
Lets open source our
apps and harness the
crowd to scale it through
an Open Systems
Alliance
Don’t
outsource
it, crowd
source IT

20. Opportunities the Alliance Could Offer
• Local Government is potentially a significant
group that, if harnessed , could be a strong
group to crowdsource
• It would make sense to share code
• It would great to share API’s
• Collaboration makes more sense than payingfor
the same thing many times over
camden.gov.uk

21. Harness The Power of Joined Up &
Don’t lock
our data up
camden.gov.uk
Open Data
Lets Mash it up
using next
generation
analytics, MDM &
open data
platforms

22. Camden’s Government As a Platform
Service Oriented Architecture
Ability to change how things look, how
processes work and swap legacy systems in
and out
camden.gov.uk
Master Data Management
Linking our data together across silo’s to
enable us to drive up data quality and
mine data
Agile Workforce
• Mobile by default, electronic by default,
unified communications by detault
Analytical Capability
Build breath taking dashboards that are
driven by and responsive to the
requirements of services
Identity Assurance
Using identity assurance to build services
from different pieces of the jigsaw
Citizen Account
Intergrated point of access to services
irrespective of channel and device
Hybrid Cloud Govt Open API’s

23. Other Lessons Learnt
camden.gov.uk

24. camden.gov.uk
Challenge Doom and Gloom
There are information and
security risks to manage –
but these should not
prevent you doing
something or lead to
treacle like IT
implementations where
security forces rebellious
(and high risk) behaviours
or simply costs a lot of
money

25. Making it Happen – Agile Software
camden.gov.uk
Development
- Co-creation
- Co-Designed with Customers
- Developed Iteratively
- Bonding Across the Organisation

26. Thematic Digital Centres of Excellence
replace Old Style IT Departments
Agile
Working
Customer
Access &
Channel Shift
camden.gov.uk
Seamless
Government
Business
Intelligence,
Analytics &
Open Data
Cross Cutting
IT Capabilities

27. Evolve the Organisation for Digital
• Business Drive Digital Opportunity
• Digitally Savvy Leaders
• Digitally Skilled Staff
• Digitally Progressive Policies
• Evidence Based Policy Making
• Embedding Digital Practices
camden.gov.uk

28. camden.gov.uk
Other Key Enablers
1. Digital woven into other Strategies at key trigger points
2. Importance of external challenge and Systems Thinking
3. Loosening up of “classic” organisational controls
4. Focus on Pace from the top
5. Move to evidence based leadership
6. Integration of Services (including public Heath)
7. Changed behaviors & attitudes to Digital
8. Importance of leadership modelling & change champions

29. We are at a tipping point for the public
sector where we can save billions, drive better
outcomes and meet rising expectations through
digital…
So lets get digital …
camden.gov.uk

30. And :-
1. Reimagine Government so we don’t just
automate it we #Bitcoin IT
2. Lets not be defined by the market, but lets
disrupt it #MedievalMarkets
3. Lets be Digital by Design and Open By
Default #SOA #API’s #OpenSystems #GaaS
4. Don’t outsource IT, lets crowdsource IT
#OpenSystemsAlliance #Opensource
5. Don’t lock our data up, lets mash it up!
camden.gov.uk

31. Let’s Get Digital –
How Camden is Building Government as a Service
- Digital by Design, Open by Default
PSEICT conference 11th November 2014
John Jackson – CIO Camden Council
(@johnjackson1066)
camden.gov.uk