camden.gov.uk

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

Life Before Austerity

camden.gov.uk

• 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

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

camden.gov.uk

The focus of

today’s

presentation is on

three key areas in

our Digital

Strategy:-

camden.gov.uk

Citizen Driven Services

Integrated

Patient Care

Across

Sectors

Early

Intervention,

Improved Life

Chances

Seamless,

Multi Channel

Transactions

via citizen

account

Accelerating

Connectivity,

Code Clubs

& business

account

camden.gov.uk

Citizen Driven Services

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

camden.gov.uk

Reimagining Government Driven by IoT

Big Belly Bins

– Waste

Management

Toilet Flush

Sensors –

Independent

Living

Smart Parking

Bays -

Enforcement

E-Tourism &

location

based

services,

Digital Ads

camden.gov.uk

Digital Engagement

Crowdsourcing You CutCitizen Facing

Dashboards &

Open Data

camden.gov.uk

Building Government as a Platform for

to transform the Public Sector

- Digital by Design, Open by Default

camden.gov.uk

• 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!!!

The Problems

camden.gov.uk

• 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

On the Plus Side

camden.gov.uk

Disrupt

Medieval

Markets

Disrupt the UK Software &

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

camden.gov.uk

• 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)

Procurement Strategy & Digital Opportunity

camden.gov.uk

• 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)

Procurement & Digital – Why it Matters

camden.gov.uk

• 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

What Cross Govt Collaboration is Delivering

camden.gov.uk

BitCoin

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

camden.gov.uk

Service

Oriented

Architecture

(SOA)

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.

camden.gov.uk

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

Harness the Potential of Open

Source

Don’t

outsource

it, crowd

source IT

camden.gov.uk

• 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

Opportunities the Alliance Could Offer

camden.gov.uk

Don’t lock

our data up

Harness The Power of Joined Up &

Open Data

Lets Mash it up

using next

generation

analytics, MDM &

open data

platforms

camden.gov.uk

Service Oriented Architecture

Ability to change how things look, how

processes work and swap legacy systems in

and out

Master Data ManagementLinking 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

Camden’s Government As a Platform

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

camden.gov.uk

Other Lessons Learnt

camden.gov.uk

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

Challenge Doom and Gloom

camden.gov.uk

Making it Happen – Agile Software

Development

- Co-creation

- Co-Designed with Customers

- Developed Iteratively

- Bonding Across the Organisation

camden.gov.uk

Thematic Digital Centres of Excellence

replace Old Style IT Departments

Agile

Working

Customer

Access &

Channel Shift

Business

Intelligence,

Analytics &

Open Data

Seamless

Government

Cross Cutting

IT Capabilities

camden.gov.uk

• Business Drive Digital Opportunity

• Digitally Savvy Leaders

• Digitally Skilled Staff

• Digitally Progressive Policies

• Evidence Based Policy Making

• Embedding Digital Practices

Evolve the Organisation for Digital

camden.gov.uk

Other Key Enablers

4. Focus on Pace from the top

2. Importance of external challenge and Systems Thinking

3. Loosening up of “classic” organisational controls

5. Move to evidence based leadership

1. Digital woven into other Strategies at key trigger points

6. Integration of Services (including public Heath)

7. Changed behaviors & attitudes to Digital

8. Importance of leadership modelling & change champions

camden.gov.uk

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

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

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)