How do smart spaces and IoT drive smarter services? Insights from and for public sector IT leaders
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Newsletter: Winter is coming

Authors and contributors: Alexandra Murphy
Hand knitted Christmas sweater with a reindeer and snowflakes on it against a snowflake background. The jumper is small and would fit a doll or teddy bear.

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

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.

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What’s in your 2026 membership?

2026 membership details were sent out in October. You’ve got everything you need to renew.

Unsure? Join us from 11:00 on Thursday 27 November for Making the most of membership. Your questions, answered. Can’t make it? Email your questions to dave.sanderson@socitm.net (Director of Member Services).

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.

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In your membership: alumni day

Celebrating your impact in 2025 | Fri-28-Nov | 11:00 to 13:00ore skills (on Teams)

Members’ open courses have concluded for 2025, which means it’s time to reflect on what you’ve learned this year 🙂 Drop in to share what you’ve done this year – or to find out what you missed so you can catch-up in 2026.

  • From army brat to IT boss: marching through life’s firewalls
    Rehana Ramesh (Director of ICT, Digital and Customer Services at Hackney) will share her powerful personal story of leadership, growth, and transformation through >20 years in local government.
  • Spotlight on Talent: A new perspective of team empowerment
    Ben Marston (Director of ICT and Digital Transformation at Sheffield) was inspired after attending our Top Talent course. So much so he put his whole team through it. Hear first-hand the impact it’s made.
  • The webinar follow-ups for The Autistic Brain and The Female Brain
    Ask the question there wasn’t time for.
  • Plus: The Great Socitm (Almost) End of Year Quiz; Alumni Voices: Stories that Inspire; and Thank You Awards.

Personalised training
Do you have a favourite course? We can personalise it for your team and deliver it in house. Please just ask us about it on hello@socitm.net.

Completed a Leadership Academy course? Join the Alumni Group on LinkedIn.

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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.

National conference Sheffield 2024

In your membership: events

Lunchtime webinars from 13:00 to 14:00

Wednesday 26 November | How do smart spaces and IoT drive smarter services? Insights from and for public sector IT leaders
Explore the art of the possible, including how you can turn your network into a value-generating asset that not only supports public services, but frees up IT resources too. Join to hear real examples and practical ideas that can help you plan for smart space and IoT integration to help build a more responsive public sector.
  • Tuesday 9 December | Navigating LGR: Challenges, opportunities and innovation
    Explore the complex landscape of Local Authority mergers, with guest speaker Pam Duke – who brings firsthand 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

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

Beneath the surface. Focus on DDaT in LGR

UKAuthority has partnered with Phoenix in a research project, highlighting the challenges to be expected and exploring ideas on potential solutions. It’s confirmed there are barriers that will be hard to overcome, but also there are clear ideas on the way forward and that new opportunities can arise from the process.

Download and read the full white paper

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:

  1. Nominate yourself or a colleague (by 31 December) for the Digital Health Impact List 2026. Socitm CEO Nadira Hussain is on the judging panel.
  2. We’ve been reading:
  3. Watching and reading the summary of a webinar – Digital Curiosity, Confidence and Capability in the Boardroom – that Nadira joined last week
  4. Oxfordshire County Council breaks down silos with Microsoft Copilot

Take care. I hope you can have a great weekend when it arrives.

Best wishes,

Alex.

Conference attendees chatting during President's Conference 2023

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