Cllr. Theo Blackwell presentation's presentation from the Digital Leaders Conference 2014 in Cardinal Place, London.

1. Leadership in Local
Government
Lessons from Camden Digital Strategy
Digital Leadership Conference10th December 2014
Cllr. Theo Blackwell, Cabinet member for Finance and
Technology Policy @camdentheo
camden.gov.uk

2. camden.gov.uk
Context to Digital Strategy
1. Like all Councils we must save £160m between 2012-
2018 from our bottom line
2. At the same time we need to tackle inequality and
alienation, foster economic growth and deliver
services based on user need
3. Realisation that not just austerity happening to jobs,
public services and the high street
4. And solving problems won’t just happen council-by-council,
it will happen by acting together
5. We cannot deliver this without innovation and this drove
us to rethink our approach to technology

3. Digital Strategy
Democratic & Strategic Leadership
• Citizen and Business Focused Council - Use modern
business intelligence / customer analytics (e.g. via Google)
to develop policy & direct resources to maximum effect
• Civic dashboards – enable citizens to discover / explore
decision making, use of resources for themselves using Council
supplied Business Intelligence Dashboards and Open Data
• Inside-out and outside in engagement – use social media for
crowdsourcing / crowd funding / Ideation / Hackathons to
drive new ways of engaging the community and our partners
in helping the Council ;
• Deliver Open Data about the Council that can be consumed by
the myriad of free & commercial applications that are being
developed to support us in nearly every aspect of our lives
camden.gov.uk
Hanessing Economic Growth
• Digital skills – nurture & develop digital skills at
school , and in adults; coding course for children ;
connect business , HE / FE institutions with schools
to share good practice ;
• Digital Business – helping businesses to get on line
, support them become digital, foster innovation
incubation, attract inward investment , driving
transactions through an integrated Business Account
• Extend high capacity digital connectivity
(including 4G) into CIP, business parks and new
developments;
• Open Spaces Wireless – free access to the internet
in designated areas around the Borough
• Apprenticeships and digital job creation – What
more can be done through Camden sponsored
initiatives to tackle worklessness and generate
growth (eg Camden’s “Into Enterprise” initiative);
• Location services– maximizing Camden’s on line
profile to attract visitors and consumer spending
into Camden
Right first Time Service (Value for
Money)
• One Camden Account joining up citizen and
business data to simplify and streamline processes
• Digital Public Realm – Harness the potential of
digital assets and smart devices to transform public
services
• Channel shift to be more efficient, joined-up and
slicker when delivering local services
• Agile workforce – mobile , collaborative and digital by
default
• Maximise Income from Digital - explore
opportunities from e-advertising, , single view of debt
and digital philanthropy
Sustainable Neighbourhoods – Making Sure Non One Left Behind
• Assisted access – Promote new approaches to the use of digital resources in libraries, resource centres,
schools, post office ; Where appropriate invest in IT that helps vulnerable groups including elderly and
disabled residents (particularly at risk of isolation) benefit from advances in technology
• Maximize community access -, Libraries, Resource Centres, City Learning Centre provide high quality
access o individuals and groups at risk of digital exclusion / poverty through new offer
• Effectively signpost resources – so those who don’t know what’s digital actually do and use it
• Open up new channels (eg Digital Television & Mobile) to encourage wider take-up & tackle exclusion
Tackling Inequality through new solutions
• Joined up data - across services and organizational
boundaries
• Predictive analytics - to aid in risk assessment and
decision making
• Integrated infrastructures - to enable access and
data sharing
• Camden Explorer – make Camden’s data
searchable irrespective of where the data is stored

4. Evolving for
Digital
Nurture Digitally Savvy
Employees
Develop our leadership teams and
staff so they understand the
opportunities offered by a digital
future and can effectively use this
knowledge to deliver new
business models
Build Digital Centres of Excellence
Strengthen organisational
capabilities in business intelligence,
agile working, seamless
government
camden.gov.uk
Deliver Open Systems / Open
Source platform for Government
Accelerate drive Open Applications,
Open API’s, Open Data delivered to
any mobile devices to enable
information sharing and service
integration across different systems
and organisations
Design Software from the
Customers Perspective
Design and build from the Customer
journeys and apply Agile Methods
Ensure “Digital Friendly” Policies
Build digital thinking into key
policies and processes (particularly
procurement, service
commissioning, planning and
economic regeneration)
Keep Information Safe
Build robust identity management
and security systems to keep the
public’s data safe
Incubate Open Systems Alliance
for government
Building an eco system between like
minded authorities to accelarate
innovation and reduce costs
Protect Privacy
Get data sharing and knowledge
management right

5. camden.gov.uk
Making it happen
• SMT and Leadership buy-in to ‘wider view’
• Digital woven into existing corporate strategy (Camden
Plan)
• Alignment with needs of new budgeting approach to focus
on outcomes
• Need to integrate services (e.g. public health)
• Ability to develop our own solutions, with our own team
• Exploiting potential of open systems
• Willingness to experiment and take risks

6. camden.gov.uk
For the future?
• Authorities face common problems, not least funding
challenge
• Open Data and technology allows us to see what we have in
common and to focus on delivery, not just strategy
• It allows us to think about government not just as something
you transact with (‘vending machine’), but as a platform to
enable others to do more
• Today’s sterile debate around devolution is about structures
created or imposed by the centre, it isn’t about subsidiarity
• The more that technology is understood by local government
leaders the more we can meaningfully create decentralised
government