President's Conference 2022

Meleri Jones, DDaT Workforce and Skills Manager, Welsh Government

Meleri will make us all welcome, run through the practical housekeeping, set the scene, share her thoughts and introduce our first keynote speaker. This first morning session will look at levelling up. How we balance a central single vision with the many levellings up there are across the nation.

Paul Orders, Chief Executive, Cardiff

Paul will welcome delegates to the capital city for Wales, reflect on the central role that digital technologies and those working with them have played in the city’s response to Covid-19 and offer some thoughts, from the perspective of a Local Authority Chief Executive, on what needs to happen next.

Faith La Grange, Director, Government, Microsoft | Robin Denton, Director, Local Government & Housing | Geoff Connell, Director of IMT & Chief Digital Officer, Norfolk County Council | David Grasty, Corporate Head of Digital Strategy & Portfolio – Digital & IT Service, London Borough of Kingston & Sutton 

Microsoft will be joined by Geoff Connell from Norfolk County Council and David Grasty from South London Partnership to talk through the work they are doing enabling Place Data.

May-N Leow, Digital Planning Head of Product, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities | Rachel Downs, Local Digital Collobation Unit | Giorgio Prister, President, Major Cities of Europe

There’s been lots of talk about levelling up, but what does this mean in practise? What do our communities need to thrive and how do they ensure their voice is heard? A keynote not to be missed.

Canon| Rubrik | Salesforce | SAP

Learn from our partners on the challenges with which they support the public sector. Different perspectives to help your organisations.

It’s time to eat and greet as we reflect on the morning’s programme over lunch. This is an opportunity to continue the conversation as we come together with our partners and enjoy further food for thought.

IP Performance | Wistek | Quest

Whether it’s cyber security, data or transformation, our private sector partners deliver effective solutions for the challenges you face. Hear different perspectives to help your organisation.

Kevin White, Scottish Government

Oliver Cronk, Chief IT Architect, EMEA, Tanium | Sam Smith, Assistant Director of IT & Digital Services for Cambridgeshire County and Peterborough City Councils

IT environments are more distributed than ever before as hybrid working has become the new normal. However, hybrid working brings its own challenges. Maintaining a complete and accurate inventory of every asset and achieving real-time visibility at speed and scale is a continual challenge.

During this session work through how your IT organisation can utilise its current tools to confidently and quickly discover endpoints, gain accurate visibility and establish best practise.

It’s time to gather our thoughts from this afternoon sessions over refreshments and snacks. This is an opportunity to connect with fellow colleagues both from the public and private sector.

Matthew Fraser, Technical Consultant, Socitm

Come and learn how to identify goals and justify investment in your IT services.  During this session, Socitm will demonstrate its Improve service to show you how to benchmark your service to gain agreement and unlock funding for your vital plans.

Matt Lewis, Chief Operating Officer, SRS Shared Resource Service | Nicola Gallen, Business Development Manager, Devolved Nations, AWS Public Sector

AWS in conversation with Matt Lewis

Join Nicola Gallen for a fireside chat with Matt Lewis as they discuss the skills challenge, hiring in a competitive market and how AWS digital skills programmes can help employers to build a new pipeline of talent.

Team 1: Denise Weaver, NPT
Team 2: Annie Ede, Conwy & Loubna Elharrif, Caerphilly
Team 3: TBC

Be inspired by the amazing talent who completed our expanded Empowering Women programme. Hear first hand the journeys our cohort have made and the impact the course has had on their careers. Virtual meetups and graduations have been brilliant and moving, but seeing people share their experiences in person will be extra meaningful.

Beverley Bradley, Corporate Area Fundraiser for Borough of Conwy, Hope House Children’s Hospices | Huw McKee, Head of Information Technology and Digital Transformation, Conwy County Borough Council

Hear from incoming president Huw McKee’s chosen charity, Hope House Children’s Hospices, give a passionate address on the phenomenal work it does.

The charity provides specialist nursing care and support to more than 750 children and their families through hospices in Oswestry and in Conwy.

This keynote will demonstrate the charity’s work which supports families from diagnosis, throughout the lifetime of their child and beyond. At the end of a child’s life, Hope House makes sure their final moments are as precious as their first.

Huw writes: Ty Gobaith (Hope House) is a charity that has always been close to my heart due to my parents’ years of dedicated fundraising before their passing last year. These hospices need to raise more than £7.5 million each year to fund crucial support for young people and their families during very sad and dark times. With our financial support they are able to bring a little sunshine to families when they really need it most. Thanks so much for your support. Diolch o galon.

Meleri Jones, DDaT Workforce and Skills Manager, Welsh Government

Sam Smith, Assistant Director of IT & Digital Services for Cambridgeshire County and Peterborough City Councils | Nadira Hussain, CEO, Socitm | David Bryant, Finance & Commercial Director, Socitm | Huw McKee, Head of Information Technology and Digital Transformation, Conwy County Borough Council

Our current president, Sam Smith, reflects on the achievements of Socitm over the last year, and hands over to incoming president Huw McKee.

After an inspiring and thought-provoking day, it’s time to absorb all that information and unwind at our President’s Conference drinks reception – generously sponsored by our partner Microsoft.

Whether you choose to carry on existing conversations or start fresh ones with new contacts, this is an opportunity to reflect and relax in a welcoming and friendly environment where catching up and connecting in comfort is key.

Our President’s dinner isn’t just about good food and great company. It’s also the time where we acknowledge and celebrate the hard-work, vision, delivery, best practise and personal achievements of digital leaders in the public sector.

In these most challenging times , peer appreciation and support are more important than ever. The President’s dinner is an opportunity to demonstrate how much our community, as a whole, values, recognises and appreciates the triumphs of individual members. This is why our President, President’s team and our partners have such pleasure in welcoming you to the evening.

The President’s Awards take place between courses and allow us to congratulate our latest Leadership Academy graduates and share in our award-winners’ achievements.

After dessert, our Learning Programme Manager, Aidan Matthews, hosts our charity auction with all monies raised going to the Hope House Children’s Hospices before a live band plays out the evening until midnight.

Meleri Jones, DDaT Workforce and Skills Manager, Welsh Government

Meleri will make us all welcome on our second and final day, run through the practical housekeeping, set the scene, share her reflections on all we’ve covered so far. This morning session will reflect on us and our organisations. The pandemic has spotlighted the value in resilience. We can be resolute and flexible. Today will look at how this can be achieved.

Glyn Jones, Chief Digital Officer, Welsh Government | Sam Hall, Chief Digital Officer, Welsh Local Government Association | Harriet Green, CEO, CDPS | Myra Hunt, CEO, CDPS

The Digital Strategy for Wales lays out six ambitious Missions to make sure digital tech improves life for people in Wales. They include building modern digital services, open to all; growing the digital economy and skills; better connectivity and use of data.  Wales has recruited new Chief Digital Officers and set up the Centre for Digital Public Services.  In this panel session, the CDPS Chief Execs, (Harriet Green and Myra Hunt) and Chief Digital Officers for the Welsh Government (Glyn Jones) and for Local Government (Sam Hall), will describe the work to collaborate around digital challenges and priorities, and drive delivery of the digital mission in Wales.

Nigel Cottam, Head of Public Sector, Avepoint

Public sector agencies have always needed to work together on big, collaborative projects. Cross-agency collaboration provides an opportunity to reduce duplicative work and produce big results—but you must overcome obstacles to data access before you can share knowledge. But how can you collaborate on official or even sensitive data when each agency has its own permissions and staff within the agencies have different rules for access and sharing? In this session, our panellists will lead a discussion around data privacy and information governance in a shared environment to enable secure cross-agency collaboration

Hear from industry best practise to support the evolution of your organisation’s technology journey. Don’t leave anyone behind!

It’s time to gather our thoughts from this morning sessions over refreshments and snacks. This is an opportunity to connect with fellow colleagues both from the public and private sector.

Danielle Davies, Content Creation Officer, Welsh Government | Jane Rickard, Digital Support Officer , Welsh Government

Be inspired by the amazing talent who completed our Empowering Women. Hear first hand the outputs and journeys they have gone on to work out how to attract and recruit more women into technology roles. Virtual meetups and graduations have been brilliant and moving, but seeing people share their experiences in person will be extra meaningful.

Nick Butcher, Public Sector Account Manager, Okta | Joe Brackenborough, Digital Transformation Manager, Thanet District Council 

The way people work and communicate online is changing at an unprecedented scale – and the public sector is no exception. Join Nick and Joe as they discuss the key challenges Thanet District Council faced when protecting, provisioning, and empowering its remote workforce during the pandemic, and why identity is foundational in helping every citizen and employee connect with Central and Local Government from whichever device or location works best.

James Threapleton, Director, Socitm | Carol Williams, Director Transformation & Digital, Walsall Council | Kate Lindley, Service Lead – Digital & Data, Socitm | Noelwyn Daniel, Head of ICT & Corporate Policy & Interim Director of Environment, Carmarthenshire

Join Walsall Council to talk all things Service Design. This session will include an insight into the Customer Access Management workstream of Walsall Council’s PROUD Programme, with the opportunity to ask questions from a panel that are expert in service design or have embarked on their own recent projects.  We will share our successful approaches and help you to understand What Does Good Look Like? And how to deliver pragmatic service design to improve public services?

Meleri Jones, DDaT Workforce and Skills Manager, Welsh Government

On behalf of us all Meleri will reflect on a significant conference for Socitm and bring proceedings to a close.

It’s time to eat and greet as we reflect on the conference’s programme over lunch. This is an opportunity to continue the conversation as we come together with our partners and enjoy further food for thought.

Chair: Geoff Connell, Director of IMT & Chief Digital Officer, Norfolk County Council

Vice-chair: Glyn Peach, Chief Digital Officer, Lancashire County Council