Wolverhampton makes things, and makes things happen. This industrial revolution powerhouse still has a thriving engineering and creative sector, is birthplace to the traffic light, Slade , Beverly Knight and Goldie. The city produces parts for the aerospace industry, without which every plane in the air worldwide would fall from the sky. Despite that, the [...]
Last November, we kicked off the Local by Social programme in Coventry
Photo: gavjof Well it’s not like you didn’t see that one coming now is it? Three years ago this month, after a good few years in local government at Barnet Council in London, I set up FutureGov. It wasn’t really a thing as such. It was me and a name (I gave it a name [...]
In our world of open government, it is sometimes easy to forget what we are doing it all for. Open data alone can never be enough, but it is the key to helping us all as citizens better understand and monitor the work of government, holding it to account for how our money is spent [...]
This article was first published in last week’s Local Government Chronicle (in print and online) along with articles on the recent Local by Social Midlands event we supported LGID to run with Coventry City Council as well as the thoughts of Martin Reeves, Chief Executive at Coventry. The times they are a-changin’. Social media and [...]
The government open data revolution is nigh, and journalists are already readying themselves to expose recalcitrant public bodies afresh in the New Year. January 2011 is already earmarked in their diaries as the date when local councils will be required to provide detailed information on key areas such as spend, services and performance, presenting them [...]
Local authorities already face formidable challenges in adjusting to the new age of austerity. There will be many tough decisions to come to ensure core services are protected amid the cuts. But now there is a new challenge.
Congratulations! Congratulations to the team behind this huge undertaking. I apologise for not being clear enough about this up front.
Inspired by much of what was emerging out of the US as well as some of our own homegrown intiatives, I felt moved to pen what I rather grandly called a “Digital Innovation Strategy for London”. Intended in the first instance to clear my head and organise my thoughts, I ended up passing it on to some senior London government colleagues for thoughts on how we might make some of it happen. In the spirit of the reviews of 2009 that are going around at the moment, I thought I would share one of the versions of what I wrote (with the help of my trusted co-conspirator Carrie) around this time last year and leave it to you to decide whether I was on to something or whether I was missing a trick – and how much has come to pass.
So the time has come to reveal the name of the lucky winner of our competition to win a trip over to the Politics Online Conference in Washington DC at the end of April.