Keep getting everything you can from your membership this year and next. You’re the most vital part of this community.
In your membership: content and people
- Volunteering for the mentoring programme on your mind for next year?
Read how it’s worked out for Blackburn’s Laura Crabtree and her mentor Carol Williams: Mentoring in the public sector – it worked for me - Read Institute Director Sam Smith’s pre-budget blog post: Digital isn’t a cost burden, it’s how local government fixes the foundations
Will Wednesday’s budget answer any of this? - Your next virtual events
- Wed-3-Dec Maximising social value in procurement.
- Tue-9-Dec Navigating LGR: your challenges and opportunities
- Thu-11-Dec Accessibility in Power BI
- Meet members in person and collaborate on cyber security solutions together:
- Socitm in the North East | Wed-3-Dec in Durham DH1 1TD
- Watch: How do smart spaces and IoT drive smarter services? Insights from and for public sector IT leaders
Download a copy of TalkTalk Business’s report Smart Spaces, Stalled Ambitions to see how your public sector peers are tackling this technology. - Did you miss this? What you didn’t know Microsoft could do: A live demo of Modern Finance for Public Sector
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 2026 membership?
2026 membership details were sent out in October. You’ve got everything you need to renew. Got a question or need more details? Email Director of Member Services dave.sanderson@socitm.net
Member-only discounts for
- Place Insight: your own social progress index [England-only]
- Courses (handpicked by Institute Director Sam Smith) with the IT Management and Leadership Institute, Leadership Through Data, and QA
- WeChange.AI‘s Framework for Change.
Keep getting all you can from membership: log into your account.
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
| Tuesday 9 December | Navigating LGR: Challenges, opportunities and innovation Explore the complex landscape of Local Authority mergers, with guest speaker Pam Duke – who brings first-hand experience from a transformative five-year restructuring initiative involving six district councils. Thursday 11 December | Accessibility in Power BI Visualisation tools such as Power BI are an invaluable tool in allowing decision makes to access the data within their organisation. But the very nature of these tools makes it difficult to make them fully accessible. Norfolk County Council’s Evy Coe will explain their recent work in assessing how Power BI reports are affected by this challenge. |
Meetings
- FULLY BOOKED Wed-3-Dec | 09:30 to 11:00 | Maximising social value in procurement | Teams | Hosts: CCS
A practical workshop for public sector buyers. Email hello@socitm.net to be added to the waiting list in case of any cancellations. - Wed-3-Dec | 10:00 to 15:00 | Socitm in the North East | Durham DH1 1TD
Socitm at 40: From legacy to leadership
President’s Conference | Tue-9 and Wed-10-Jun | London SW6 1UD
Registration is open for next year’s annual conference. Get it into your calendar now. Review the past 40 years with us and carry on the search for what works best now and next for our local public services.
Wanted: your Socitm memories, milestones and photos for our 40th birthday.
Partners’ events and updates
- Wed-3-Dec
- 09:00 to 17:00 | Digital Ethics Summit [London]
- 10:00 to 12:00 | Microsoft Innovation and Collaboration Forum
- 12:00 to 13:30 | Future gazing: where next for local gov tech in 2026?
- 13:00 to 14:00 | Love collaborating, hate meetings?
- 13:00 to 15:00 | Dolenni Digidol: Celebrating the impact of our future leaders [Llandudno]
- Thu-4-Dec | 16:00 to 17:00 | Why open data matters in the age of AI
- Wed-10-Dec | 11:00 to 12:30 | C-TAG Virtual Workshop: Securing your email domain
Smart Spaces for the public sector
So near, so far
Whether it’s a hospital wing using tech to adjust its airflow, a town hall automating its lighting or a warehouse reconfiguring around stock levels, the smart space is no longer sci-fi – it’s already here. But it’s not yet here for everyone, everywhere. There’s momentum and ambition. But there’s also friction. TalkTalk Business spoke with hundreds of IT and tech leaders, and their insights shape their exclusive report on the public sector’s adoption of smart space technology.
Download your copy to get an understanding of how your peers are tackling this technology.
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:
- Like everyone else, we’ve been reading and thinking about GDS Local.
- Make Change and Adoption as easy as possible… Viva Connections is a must for Public Sector bodies and organisations with 50+ staff
- UK public prefers cautious AI integration in public services, Ipsos AI tracker reveals
- Tech-Takeback needs your support. Requests for laptops have increased by more than 800%!
- Remember to nominate yourself or a colleague (by 31 December) for the Digital Health Impact List 2026. Socitm CEO Nadira Hussain is on the judging panel.
Take care. I hope you can have a great weekend when it arrives.
Best wishes,
Alex.
Photo by Megan Watson on Unsplash
