Welcome to Socitm Inspire, your new home for local government digital transformation

Socitm Inspire is launching at this year’s President’s Conference in Brighton.

It’s a privilege to have Sam Smith, Socitm’s president from 2020 to 2022, joining as its
director from Monday 17 July.

We know we have to evolve from Socitm now, a responsive organisation, to Socitm 2.0. One that is current and offers greater value to its members in what continue to be challenging times for the sector.

Our new institute is part of an evolution to become Socitm 2.0

Nadira Hussain

There are two big things we want Socitm Inspire to do:

1. Help you improve organisational and place-based outcomes.
2. Continue to create and support communities that will help you share, learn and grow.

I see the institute as our new home. With our individual services as its rooms and our communities – that enable networking, sharing and collaboration – as the roof.

Simplifying and standardising

Socitm was structured around discrete products and services: Lead, Inform, Improve, Include and Share.

Over the last two and a half years, through our improved engagement efforts, we have listened to you and responded accordingly by designing the institute. It is a one-stop shop where you can access all our assets, resources and learning and development capabilities to aid improvement and innovation.

We are updating the website to reflect these changes that we have made through the establishment of the institute. This will replace terminology based on individual services with clearly-named work areas.

Instead of Share the website has a calendar of our events. And we are simplifying the whole site to improve the user experience and make navigation easier.

We will also refocus some of these work areas:

• Policy, research and innovation will be based on ‘what works’: offering proven methodologies, tools, case studies and templates that have worked elsewhere so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
• Learning and development will continue to help you acquire skills and capabilities to work as leaders in ongoing turbulent times.
• We also aspire to enhance our benchmarking capability and offer new areas in the near future, including data services.

Socitm Advisory will continue as a separate company providing consultancy services.

Sharing

A key unique offer is creating communities where people can come together, talk and share – the roof of our house. We have an inherent capability to provide opportunities to collaborate and network in the communities of interest we have all created.

This extends to the regional forums of local meetings, our national events and our growing alumni community, who represent our aspiring talent pipeline.

Socitm is also turning itself into a charity, through which we believe we can attract more funding but also deliver greater social value and public good.

We have always had these values at our heart and achieving this status formalises our ambition.

Find what works

These changes are the start of evolving Socitm, with the vision of creating a unique single place
to offer real practical guidance, tools and to take our members beyond what works.

The institute will give you access to resources, horizon scanning, thought leadership, insights
and network that will help adapt and deliver successful outcomes through unlocking untapped potential in organisations and places.

Additionally, it will provide access to capabilities to enable informed decision making; connections with peers you can learn from; and the opportunity to upskill your workforce to deliver transformation at pace and scale.

We know that Socitm has to remain current, responsive and fit for purpose.

The team is making these changes based on listening and responding to your needs.

We are keen to be the society that can tell you what works, and apply the lessons learnt itself.

Available now

Photo by James Feaver on Unsplash