Sadly too much of this is repeating the work of others. Yes networks of practitioners are sharing ideas and best practice. But actual code and functionality is being built in possibly hundreds of similar but slightly different ways across myriad councils.
Nobody is to blame for this; we are all focussed on doing what's best for our council and the area it serves.
However we need to work together more across the sector. While our geographical areas are distinct, the types of services we provide are similar enough that we shouldn't all need to be building unique 'My Account' or 'My council tax' systems again and again.
Wouldn't it be better to collaborate on one or two such platforms which we could share and reuse? Wouldn't our limited ICT capacity go further if so much of it wasn't soaked up on building these systems and managing suppliers to link in to our web channels?
As one small step in this direction Brighton and Hove City Council has released the source code for our engagement tool. Having previously experimented with a variety of tools for seeking views on our annual budget-setting process we decided to build our own simple, reusable tool which sets out clearly the budget situation and registers citizens' views on how they would prioritise spending. Hundreds have used it on our own website and we hope many more will at councils across the land.
We need to start building common platforms for all of local government so that collectively we create digital tools for the future. I know there are pockets of good practice but there's much greater potential for us to move forward together.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jason Kitcat
Quelle/Source: UK Authority, 28.07.2014
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