Keep getting everything you can from your membership this year and into 2026.
In your membership: content and people
- Share what’s working for you
If you were at an in-person event, that thing you’ve been working on (or have already done) might have been exactly what the person next to you needed to fix a problem or project they’re working on. The next best virtual alternative is sharing that thing in a case study or blog post. Your experiences and perspectives matter, so please share them with members. - Your next virtual events
- Tue-4-Nov | 09:30 to 12:30 | Introduction to emotional intelligence
- Wed-5-Nov | 10:00 to 11:00 | Performance Benchmarking [Northern Ireland members only]
- Wed-5-Nov | 13:00 to 14:00 | GenAI contact centres: From pilot to proven practice
- Meet members in person and collaborate on solutions together:
- Socitm in the East | Thu-20-Nov in Huntingdon
- Socitm in London and the South East | Tue-25-Nov in Hackney’s Tomlinson Centre
- Public Sector ICT Conference | Tue-25-Nov in Belfast
- Socitm in the North East | Wed-3-Dec in Durham
- Did you miss this? Shadow AI in the public sector: innovation without oversight?
- Watch How to Be a Great Mentor and then volunteer for Socitm’s mentoring programme.
Browse your members-only resource hub.
You will need a user account on socitm.net to access member-only resources. Let us know if need any support.
What’s in your membership?
- Benchmarking It’s your last chance to claim 2025’s complimentary module. Email benchmarking@socitm.net
- Conferences, meetings and webinars
- Courses
- Innovation session/lab with Civiteq
- IT policy audit [Essential+/Enhanced/Executive] from PPS
- Resources
- Website accessibility testing with Silktide
Member-only discounts for
- Place Insight: your own social progress index [England-only]
- Courses with the IT Management and Leadership Institute, Leadership Through Data, and QA
- Tue-11 and Wed-12-Nov | 13:30 to 17:00 | M365 Teams Information Governance and Protection
- WeChange.AI‘s Framework for Change. Watch WeChange in 3 minutes 🙂
We calculated the £value of your Socitm membership so you don’t have to.
Keep getting all you can from membership: log into your account.
In your membership: Courses
Core skills (on Teams)
| Course | Dates | Time | Training points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to emotional intelligence | Tuesday 4 November | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
| Equality, diversity, and inclusion | Wednesday 12 November | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
Registering for training
Read your guide to using training points. Log in for the current number of available points. Don’t have enough or you’ve run out? Let us know.
Things happen. If you can’t make the date of your training course let us know ASAP and we’ll get you onto the next suitable one available. And your training points will transfer with you.
Please note: non-attendance without letting us know will mean training points getting deducted from your organisation’s annual total.
Share what’s working for you
If you were at an in-person event, that thing you’ve been working on (or have already done) might have been exactly what the person next to you needed to fix a problem or project they’re working on. The next best virtual alternative is sharing that thing in a case study or blog post.
Your experiences and perspectives matter, so please share them with members.
In your membership: events
Lunchtime webinars from 13:00 to 14:00
| Wednesday 5 November | GenAI contact centres: From pilot to proven practice See how GenAI and agentic technology are working in practice – handling everything from straightforward enquiries to complex pathways in adult social care, benefits, and housing. Councils including Derby, Renfrewshire, and Telford & Wrekin are achieving up to 56% contact deflection, measurable first-contact resolution gains, and savings exceeding £1 million annually – all while improving resident satisfaction, accessibility and 24/7 service delivery. |
- Wednesday 12 November | Round-the-clock defence: Why Managed Detection and Response matters
Medium-sized organisations are frequently the target of ransom and extortion by malicious actors. Yet often they’re unable to respond adequately due to a perfect storm of dwindling security budgets and the challenges of retaining skilled cyber talent.
Join WithSecure to see how you can perfectly compliment your existing in-house cyber security capability to meet your business needs, protect your reputations, and achieve compliance. - Friday 14 November | Zero Trust in the AI era – Moving to a SASE architecture
- Wednesday 19 November | What you didn’t know Microsoft could do: A live demo of modern finance for the public sector
- Tuesday 9 December | Navigating LGR: Challenges, opportunities and innovation
Meetings
- Wednesday 5 November | 10:00 to 11:00 | Performance Benchmarking [Northern Ireland-only]
- Friday 28 November | 11:00 to 13:00 | Alumni Day
- FULLY BOOKED Wednesday 3 December | 09:30 to 11:00 | Maximising social value in procurement. A practical workshop for public sector buyers. Email us to be added to the waiting list.
Partners’ events and updates
- Wed-5-Nov | 10:00 to 12:00 | Microsoft Innovation and Collaboration Forum
- Thu-6-Nov | 13:00 to 13:45 | LGR: Cyber and DDaT show and share
Join us, the LGA, Local Digital and GDS Local for a session on the evolving LGR support offer. To attend, please register for the LGA’s DDAT Leads LGR Network. You will then receive an automatic invitation. - Tue-11-Nov
- Wed-12 to Thu-13-Nov | 08:45 to 18:00 | TechShare Pro 2025 [London]
- Thu-13-Nov
- 12:30 to 15:30 | Local Gov London Roundtable: Talking IT challenges – led by Tanium’s Senior Security Advisor Dan Jones (previously Head of Cyber at the MOD) [London]
- 13:00 to 14:00 | Breaking Bias with Belbin
- Tue-18-Nov | 14:00 to 15:30 | C-TAG Workshop: Securing your email domain
- Tue-18 to Wed-19-Nov | 08:45 to 17:00 | LGPN South [Heathrow]
Full of your Socitm community: CEO Nadira Hussain, Emeritus President Mark Lumley (Hounslow), VP Yogita Popat (Barnet), LSE Chair Rehana Ramesh (Hackney), VP Kevin Taylor (Suffolk), and Trustee Jonathan Stephenson (Brentwood and Rochford). - Wed-19-Nov | 11:00 to 12:00 | Proactive cyber defence with AI-driven threat intelligence
- Thu-20 to Fri-21-Nov| 09:00 to 17:00 | ADEPT Autumn Conference [Manchester]
President Kurt Frary (Norfolk) is on Friday’s agenda for Developing a digital workforce - Mon-24-Nov | 12:00 to 16:00 | AI in Local Government Fair [Cambridge]
The fair’s bringing together council staff from across Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, and Greater Manchester with University of Cambridge AI researchers. - Wed-26-Nov | 14:00 to 15:00 | C-TAG Workshop: MTA-STS
- Wed-26 to Thu-27-Nov | Local government innovation hackathon on homelessness and rough sleeping [Birmingham]
- Wed-26 to Fri-28-Nov | 11:00 to 12:30 | AI, Automation and Bots4Good 2025
- Wed-3-Dec | 13:00 to 15:00 | Dolenni Digidol: Celebrating the impact of our future leaders [Llandudno]
Cyber incident response: What really happens in the first 48 hours
The first 48 hours are a critical race to contain attackers who spread in minutes.
93% of businesses that suffer data loss for >10 days file for bankruptcy within a year.
In a cyber attack, the first 48 hours determine everything. The initial decisions made, the speed of containment, and the clarity of the response can mean the difference between a manageable incident and a catastrophic business failure.
But what does this 48-hour window actually look like?
Hear from Paul Abbott, a business leader who navigated the high-pressure, real-world chaos of a major cyber incident. He’ll share the critical decisions and challenges he faced in that initial two-day period.
His experience is mapped against an expert “First 48 Hours” framework, and global incident response specialists will break down the essential, time-sensitive actions that must happen, from the first notification to the start of recovery planning.
Join Paul and Centerprise International from 14:00 to 15:00 on Tuesday 11 November.
Operational technology security in 2026
The boundaries between IT and OT are disappearing, creating both opportunities and new risks. Traditional patching and perimeter models are no longer enough.
Resilience now depends on visibility, segmentation and Zero Trust collaboration between SOC analysts and operational teams.
For Scottish councils and critical service providers, aligning OT security with national resilience frameworks strengthens continuity and public confidence.
In their latest blog, e2e discuss continuous monitoring across all environments and involving OT asset owners in every cyber security conversation.
Thank you for reading (or scrolling) this far! Just one more thing…
A few of the things I’ve been looking at (and sharing with colleagues) this week:
- President Kurt Frary is about 1 minute into the video highlights from this month’s Major Cities of Europe annual conference 😀
- Jeremy Connell-Waite‘s collection of FREE AI courses, papers, books and blogs to help you stay informed and inspired.
- H/T Squiggly Careers: Breathpod has a 7 day breathing programme, which is a good introduction if it’s something you’re curious about.
Take care. I hope you can have a great weekend when it arrives.
Best wishes,
Alex.
Start creating positive, lasting changes in the place you live and work
Photo by James A. Molnar on Unsplash