Celebrating hard work, our sector and our community
What an honour it is to be standing here as your new Socitm president. This evening isn’t just about good food and good company, although I think you will agree both are excellent. It is about something more meaningful: celebrating hard work, innovation and resilience and recognising the people who make our public sector communities so extraordinary.
In challenging times like these, recognition and support from peers matter more than ever. Our awards remind us of what is possible when we come together to share, to lead and to learn from each other. If we want to be a community that is fit for the future, we need each other more than ever.
That spirit of support is why I have chosen Norfolk Blood Bikes as my president’s charity for this year. I am an avid biker and I used to be a blood biker, so I have first-hand experience of the work the charity does. They are a brilliant volunteer network delivering urgent medical supplies across the region, quietly helping to save lives. If you can give generously to this charity that would be really welcome.
We should be celebrating our sector – there are a lot of good people doing good work and making a difference. Thank you for your passion, what you contribute and for being part of the Socitm community, a community that lifts one another. Let’s enjoy this evening, celebrate each other and remember why we do what we do.
Kurt Frary, Socitm president
This is an edited version of Kurt Frary’s speech at his president’s dinner in Birmingham on 10 June, which included the presentation of Socitm’s annual awards. The charity auction, run by former Socitm vice-president Alison Hughes, raised more than £2,050 for Norfolk Blood Bikes, a charity whose volunteers transport blood, medical samples and donated breast milk between local NHS hospitals and the East Anglian Air Ambulance service.
President’s Conference day one
We need to reward curiosity says Norfolk boss
Public sector organisations need to support curiosity and accept some failures, Norfolk County Council’s chief executive Tom McCabe said in a keynote speech at Socitm’s President’s Conference on 10 June 2025.
“To truly lead in this time of change and disruption, we must cultivate a culture of innovation where we reward curiosity, where experimentation is encouraged and where failure can be seen as part of a journey, a step towards ultimate progress and success,” he said. This means empowering staff so they feel their voices and ideas can be heard, investing in training and recognising those who challenge the norm, he added.
“As we look to the future we must remain positive,” McCabe said. “There’s lots of reasons why we wouldn’t, but we must – it’s our job.”
Norfolk is using artificial intelligence (AI) on free text notes in its social care system to help it predict which older residents are at risk of a fall, allowing the council to intervene to avoid some of the fractures these falls cause. McCabe said the county is looking at other ways to use predictive analytics, but doing this effectively will require better access to NHS data: “Sadly, this remains a barrier in Norfolk,” he said. Public sector organisations should collaborate on managing data on individuals, something already demonstrated by shared care records, he added.
McCabe said collaboration between the county council, seven district councils, the fire and rescue service and refuse collection contractors has allowed Norfolk to map the strength of mobile network performance through equipment installed in bin lorries and fire engines: “Current mobile coverage claims have been tested and found to be inaccurate,” he said. Socitm president Kurt Frary, who is also Norfolk’s head of IT and chief technology officer, presented the project at a Socitm event last October.
“Innovation can create a ripple effect which has the potential to revitalise communities, expand opportunities and build trust”
Tom McCabe, Norfolk County Council
Such projects show the power of collaboration, McCabe told the President’s Conference. “It challenges the status quo, sparks new thinking and opens the door to smarter and more inclusive solutions,” he said. “From small initiatives to bold strategies, innovation can create a ripple effect which has the potential to revitalise communities, expand opportunities and build trust.”
Smart sensors can allow ‘deeply human’ home support
Technology-based services can support people in ways which are proactive and respectful, such as using smart sensors to keep older residents safe in their homes, Socitm research analyst Diana Rebaza told the event.
She described how such technology can generate a message to a vulnerable older person’s daughter or son if they leave the conservatory door open late at night, allowing the child to call their parent to check. It can also monitor daily patterns of behaviour, such as when the person gets up and goes to bed. “They are unobtrusive and respectful but they are powerful,” said Rebaza, with data provided both to family members and professional carers to help keep the person living independently at home. “This is what modern public services can look like – proactive, preventative and deeply human.”
Reimagining services was one of three focus points for Socitm’s 2025 Digital Trends report, along with cyber security and harnessing data. Martin Ferguson, director of policy and research, said that the society has published material on technology trends since 1987 with the current series of reports starting in 2017. A live survey suggested that delegates would like to see local government reorganisation and budgets covered in next year’s edition.
Derbyshire councils work with university on public engagement
The University of Derby has run public engagement and research exercises for local authorities including Derbyshire County Council, Derby City Council, Barnet Council and Bolsover District Council, its staff told the conference.
The university deploys temporary installations and electric bicycles in communities to encourage people to contribute to engagement exercises, rather than requiring them to come to an event or fill in something online. It ran a five-day consultation for Derby and Derbyshire councils that attracted 225 people including children to discuss their views on nature. A similar exercise in Barnet involved a four hour stint at Brent Cross shopping centre.
The university involves its own students in some projects. Bolsover District Council wanted to research young people’s views on how to use £15 million in government regeneration funding. Derby students looked at how to encourage those visiting Bolsover Castle, an English Heritage property, also to visit and shop in the town of Bolsover. They produced ideas including partnerships with other nearby attractions, shared ticketing and the potential for a local festival. The university has run similar student-led projects with Derby Book Festival and the city’s cathedral, the latter involving an undergraduate helping to develop a visitor engagement plan.
Professor Ian Whitehead, the university’s head of pedagogic innovation, enhancement and research, said such work helps connect students to local communities. “A really key part of our learning and teaching strategy is a civic pedagogy which emphasises that community engagement, opportunities for our students to do applied research and get involved in working on real-life challenges,” he said.
Northern Irish councils should be intelligent clients says NILGA chief
Northern Ireland’s 11 local authorities need to focus on commissioning digital services rather than building them, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) told a panel session on the UK’s devolved nations.
Alison Allen said that the 11 councils collaborate on issues including the introduction of 5G mobile broadband services but find it harder to improve their own back-office systems. “We will never have the expertise internally to support the sector properly,” she said. “The challenge for us is to be intelligent clients, not to be digital experts.” This means writing tenders well then managing delivery so to get the best from the private sector, but she added that some in Northern Ireland’s public sector are suspicious of profit-driven organisations.
Allen added that Northern Ireland is expecting a strategy on AI in the next six months. “That is very welcome, as the existing policy within the Northern Ireland Civil Service is ‘don’t use it’ – I’m not joking,” she said.
Martyn Wallace, chief digital officer of Digital Office Scottish Local Government, said that AI is creating security problems in Scotland with some staff circumventing organisational controls. “We’ve got a shadow AI industry happening in our councils, with people using ChatGPT and other AI apps without any governance whatsoever,” he said, including people sending council material to a personal account for AI processing to avoid corporate rules.
“We’ve got a shadow AI industry happening in our councils”
Martyn Wallace, Digital Office Scottish Local Government
Lindsey Phillips, chief digital officer of the Welsh Local Government Association, said that its local public sector benefits from a shared cybersecurity programme, as well as nationally-run digital platforms for school pupils and learning management. It is working to do more with digital and data in social care, but she added: “Local government loves a pilot. But we are not that great at scaling them up or taking advantage of them across different areas.”
Top Talent looks at AI in children’s services and communications
Generative AI shows promise in supporting children’s services and is already saving council communications staff time, according to two groups which completed Socitm’s Top Talent course by presenting their findings to the conference.
The shocking pink team focused on what generative AI could provide for children’s services including automated case note summarisation, letter and report drafting, pre-populated forms and predictive analytics. Craig Bould of Norfolk County Council prompted ChatGPT to rewrite a sample child protection plan for the fictional seven-year-old boy at its centre, resulting in a shorter document using simple language and child-friendly icons with a section telling the child that “lots of grown-ups care about you and are working together to help”.
The wild green team looked at how generative AI can help create content for local authorities, helping them to cope with budget pressures, improve readability and analyse text for clarity. Lara-Jade Horsley of Staffordshire County Council said her organisation is using Microsoft Copilot to produce clearer written material more quickly, with its communications team saving more than nine hours a week through its use. The county is introducing Copilot for other staff to help them produce documents to a high quality in less time.
Day one in brief
- Socitm may consider re-establishing a register of local authority software applications, following a discussion featuring the presidential team. Director of policy and research Martin Ferguson said the society used to have such a register and its New Zealand equivalent ALGIM is willing to share its work running one. Socitm president Kurt Frary said that Norfolk County Council has an in-house register and that one covering the whole country would enable more effective engagement with suppliers. He added that it would make sense to start with the most significant applications such as those used in finance and social care.
- Cumberland Council has saved more than 1,000 hours of staff time a month by introducing automated invoice processing, which has also helped it meet payment deadlines, the council’s senior manager for digital innovation and customer experience Craig Barker said. It has also used Netcall’s process automation service to clear a seven-week backlog for disability blue badge applications which it now delivers in as little as four days, and to introduce a new paid-for garden waste service.
- Lichfield District Council has developed a new measure of community safety with its data partner Impera Analytics that unlike previous versions is not solely based on crime statistics. The council’s chief executive Simon Fletcher said that its new community safety partnership also uses local data on social progress and citizen-led impact research: “We have refused to talk about crime stats in isolation and talk about about the things that make people feel safe and connected,” he said. This means that the council can deliver elements of the plan itself, rather than relying on the police to reduce crime levels.
President’s Conference day two
International panel focuses on data, security and reorganisation
Local authorities in other developed countries have similar problems to those in the UK, leaders of Socitm’s international peer organisations told the event.
Connie McCutcheon, president of Canada’s Municipal Information Systems Association (MISA), said its members are increasingly considering the risks of AI. “That hype cycle we’ve all been on has now gotten to, ‘Are we doing this safely? Are we taking into account things like bias? Is our data really ready for AI?’,” she said. “This is such an opportunity as data is often not thought of as the asset that it is, but now it is the raw material for AI.” She added that council data on land use has supported a project run by the University of British Columbia to develop a housing needs assessment tool.
Many of the participants said cybersecurity is an area of significant concern, with those from European Union member states working to comply with the Network and Information Security (NIS2) directive. “That affects all communities and municipalities in Sweden, and it’s a big job to get all things in place and get compliance,” said Johan Petterson, a board member of KommITS and head of IT of Åre Kommun.
Some local authorities in New Zealand and Australia are undergoing reorganisation. At present, councils in New Zealand manage local water supply, waste treatment and storm water management but many are going to transfer this to newly-created organisations. Marion Dowd, ALGIM NZ co-president and chief information officer of Western Bay of Plenty District Council, described supporting this as “a massive piece of work” for councils.
Matthew Tulloch, a board member of ALGIM Australia and manager of business systems and transformation at Southern Grampians Shire Council, said his is one of six rural local authorities in Victoria that are collaborating on technology and processes as an alternative to being formally amalgamated. The councils cover small populations but large geographical areas, involving extensive asset management, and the state government wants to withdraw financial subsidies.
“Data is often not thought of as the asset that it is, but now it is the raw material for AI”
Connie McCutcheon, MISA
He added that someone at the event had explained to him England’s current round of local government reorganisation: “Wow, that’s scary. Good luck with that – it’s hugely challenging,” he said.
The panel session was held as part of Socitm hosting the annual conference of the Linked Organisation of Local Authority ICT Societies (LOLA), which involves groups from Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the US.
ALGIM showcases New Zealand council innovation
Auckland Council has introduced a fleet of 23 parking enforcement cars that check whether vehicles have paid for street parking using automatic numberplate recognition. The council cars act as automatic parking wardens, recording video and still images as evidence for the fines that they issue. The council has issued NZD3.8 million (£1.7 million) in parking fines for the year to April. “Not good for consumers but great for the council,” said Mike Manson, chief executive of ALGIM NZ, as part of his session on innovation by New Zealand’s local authorities
Selwyn District Council has developed a drowning prevention system for use at its aquatic centre, which uses 27 cameras and AI technology to analyse customer movements then alerts lifeguards through smartwatches about anyone who appears to be at risk of drowning. The council started the work after an incident in 2023 where someone was hard to see given glare on the water when they got into trouble, although they were successfully rescued.
Gisborne District Council was the first local authority to join a managed detection service run by New Zealand cybersecurity provider SSS and co-ordinated by ALGIM NZ, providing it with a level of service it could not afford through staff. Manson said the cost to Gisborne fell from NZD70,000 to NZD20,000 annually as more councils joined, with around one-third of local authorities in the country now using the service.
Christchurch City Council has worked with suppliers Attentis and Spark NZ to install sensors in a forest park to provide early notice of wildfires as well as relevant environmental data, a project that won Socitm’s international innovation of the year award. Manson said the project fits with Christchurch’s broader work on becoming a smart city, which also includes a graffiti detection app that can identify the artist: “The police go round and have a little talk to them,” he said.
Day two in brief
- Derby City Council has saved £7.45 million so far by requiring everyone contacting the council to go through its AI-based chatbot Darcie, which generates answers from published material. “It’s not got the choice of ‘do you want to speak to an AI’ or ‘do you want to speak to a human’, because guess what they’re going to pick,” said Andy Brammall, the city’s director of digital, physical infrastructure and customer engagement. However, he added that the system puts vulnerable people through to humans if they call during office hours. The service is now deflecting 58% of calls from reaching a human and has cut waiting times, with the council recently introducing Perrie, a version for staff.
- Local government reorganisation that results in smaller authorities than the government’s 500,000 population target could be “phenomenal”, Lichfield District Council chief executive Simon Fletcher told the event. He said that the existing two-tier system is inefficient and councils get in each other’s way, but a unitary South Staffordshire Council covering around 300,000 people could provide service transformation and visible local leadership while empowering towns and neighbourhoods to make local decisions. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the sector to do things differently,” he said.
- Technology careers should be promoted to women through real-life stories, according to two teams completing Socitm’s Empowering Women course. Sarah Davis-Solan of Wiltshire Council said that young women working in IT have often been encouraged to do so by family or a teacher, showing the value in providing lived experiences. Nikki Castledine of Canon UK presented a draft social media campaign titled ‘Shape you career to shape our future’, partly based on the desire of many 14-25 year olds to find work that has a sense of purpose.