The new term really is here, and with it a bit of a more regular routine. The events calendar gets back on track from next week. And you’ll have new content to read this month too – final checks are underway so we can publish ASAP.
It’s also membership renewal time v. soon. The info you need is coming. But something you can use now is your exclusive WeChange.AI for Socitm members-only pricing for their Framework for Change.
For organisations with 501 to 1,000 employees you’ll pay £8,950 (instead of £19,950) saving 55%. Attention grabbing, but what does it do?! The Framework can help the whole of your organisation to stop under using your current tech. There are a lot of details so do contact us with questions.
In your membership: content and people
- Get the Digital Trends 2026 report you most need. Survey’s last day is Friday 5 September.
- Coming this month: dealing with a payroll cyber incident; AI in Norfolk; an updated GenAI usage policy template.
- Max social value in your procurement: A workshop for your buyers
- Meet members and collaborate on solutions together at your next local meeting:
- Socitm in the North West | Fri-19-Sep in Manchester
- Socitm in Yorkshire and Humber | Thu-2-Oct on Teams
- Socitm in the South West | Fri-3-Oct in Taunton
- Socitm in the Midlands | Thu-9-Oct in Coventry
- Socitm in the East | Thu-20-Nov in Huntingdon
- Socitm in London and the South East | Tue-25-Nov in London [TBC]
- Socitm in the North East | Wed-3-Dec [location TBC]
- Donate (with Gift Aid), if you can, to support Friday’s Public Sector Challenge in the Peak District.
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?
- Accessibility testing with Silktide
- Benchmarking
- Conferences, meetings and webinars
- Courses
- Innovation session/lab with Civiteq
- IT policy audit [Essential+/Enhanced/Executive] from PPS
- Resources
Extra member-only offers
- New for 2025-26 WeChange.AI Socitm-only pricing.https://socitm.net/membership/wechange-ai-socitm/
- Place Insight: your own social progress index [England-only]
- Socitm pricing on courses with the IT Management and Leadership Institute, Leadership Through Data, and QA
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
Leadership
| Course | Location | Dates | Training points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top Talent | Cardiff | Tuesday 9 to Wednesday 10 September and Monday 13 to Tuesday 14 October | 4 |
| FULL Empowering Women | London | Monday 15 to Tuesday 16 September and Tuesday 25 November | 3 |
| Empowering Women | Huntingdon | Thursday 18 to Friday 19 September and Thursday 20 October | 3 |
| Place-based Leadership | Birmingham | Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 October | 4 |
Core skills (on Teams)
| Course | Dates | Time | Training points |
|---|---|---|---|
| FULL Introduction to emotional intelligence | Monday 22 September | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
| Managing and motivating hybrid teams | Tuesdays 30 September and 21 October | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
| Equality, diversity and inclusion | Tuesday 7 October | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
| Introduction to emotional intelligence | Tuesday 4 November | 09:30 to 12:30 | 1 |
Digital skills (on Teams)
| Course | Dates | Time | Training points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Change Agent | Thursday 9 and Friday 10 October | 09:00 to 16:30 | 0 |
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.
In your 2025 membership: benchmarking
Complimentary use of 1 module
Choose from: cost, delivery, performance or user skills.
With all the financial challenges facing the sector, use the cost module this year to baseline your transformation work.
Find out what you can do and how in the Benchmarking Services Help Centre, then claim your module.
In your membership: events
Lunchtime webinars from 13:00 to 14:00
Wednesday 10 September: AI agents in action: 3 council solutions that work. Join the live demo of HSO’s:
- Autonomous customer service agent: handling routine inquiries 24/7.
- Internal policy discovery assistant: instant access to accurate information.
- Citizen services agent: pre-qualifying requests ensuring complete submissions from the start.
- Friday 12 September | The Autistic brain
- Wednesday 17 September | Maximising optimisation in an XaaS world
- Friday 19 September | Securing artificial intelligence
- Wednesday 24 September | How technology drives smarter outcomes
- Friday 26 September | Key strategies for modernising threat detection
- Friday 3 October | Your slides are not the presentation. How to stop excluding people every time you share your screen
- Wednesday 22 October | Beyond the £45 Billion: How AI can actually deliver the productivity everyone’s talking about
Meetings
- Tuesday 30 September | 10:00 to 11:00 | LGR insights for districts and boroughs
- Tuesday 7 October | 10:00 to 11:00 | LGR insights for districts and boroughs
- Thursday 23 October | 09:30 to 11:00 | Maximising social value in your procurement
Conference
Sessions and speakers include:
- An opening keynote address from Cardiff Council’s chief exec Paul Orders
- The future of apps and data integration in local government and the NHS withDylan Roberts, CDIO of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health.
- Embracing serverless to enhance service: Nickki Johns, Head of Digital at the Vale of Glamorgan Council
- Sarah Day from ADSS Cymru will talk about why digital matters for the future sustainability of social care services.
- Neath Port Talbot’s CDO Chris Owen will be chairing a discussion with CDPS, NLAWARP and the WLGA.
- Councillor Dimitri Batrouni from Newport City Council asks, ‘are we doing enough?’.
Partners’ events and updates
- Wed-10-Sep | 10:00 to 11:30 | Public sector buyers showcase: AI in legal
- Thu-11-Sep | 10:00 to 11:00 | Secure more, worry less: safeguarding communities with smart security
- Fri-12-Sep | 09:30 to 16:00 | Northern WARP Annual Conference [Manchester]
- Wed-17 to Fri-19-Sep | 11:00 to 12:30 | Resilience and Cyber4Good 2025
- Tue-23-Sep | 11:00 to 12:30 | C-TAG Virtual Workshop: Securing your email domain
- Wed-24-Sep | 17:00 to 19:00 | Dolenni Digidol: One year on – celebrating the impact of ‘Leading modern public services’ [Carmarthen]
- Wed-24 to Thu-25-Sep | 09:30 to 16:30 | DigiGov: Citizen Experience [London]
- Thu-25-Sep | 09:30 to 13:00 | Course: Microsoft 365 Purview eDiscovery
- Thu-25-Sep | 10:00 to 11:00 | Inside cyber attacks: the real impact of ransomware in 2025
- Tue-7 to Wed-8-Oct | 10:00 to 15:15 | HETT 2025 [London]
- Tue-14-Oct | 14:00 to 16:00 | Public sector buyers showcase: AI for eDisclosure and eDiscovery
- Thu-3 to Fri-14-Nov | The Future of Localism [St Andrews]
- Fri-7-Nov | 10:00 to 15:00 | AI workshop for councillors: Explore AI and Innovation [Towcester]
Institute Director Sam Smith is one of the speakers/panellists - Tue-18 to Wed-19-Nov | LGPN South [London]
Full of your Socitm community! CEO Nadira Hussain, Emeritus President Mark Lumley (Hounslow), VP Yogita Popat (Barnet), LSE Chair Rehana Ramesh (Hackney) and VP Kevin Taylor (Suffolk)
Your AI insight could help shape the bigger picture
HSO is speaking to 100 leaders and practitioners to get under the skin of what’s really happening with AI in organisations. Not theory. Not hype. Just honest, useful insight – from people who know their stuff, like you. Share yours in their short survey. Your perspective will help shape the final report – and they’ll send you a copy as thanks.
>> Add your voice now
Secure more, worry less: safeguarding communities with smart security
Thursday 11 September | 10:00-11:00 | Teams
Anti-social behaviour is on the rise, and housing associations in the UK are feeling the pressure.
From vandalism and noise complaints to smoking and vaping in communal areas, these issues don’t just disrupt communities, they put tenant safety and wellbeing at risk.
Join Phoenix for an exclusive webinar hosted in partnership with Verkada and the National Housing Federation, to explore how to combat anti-social behaviour, improve tenant safety, and streamline remote monitoring.
In this session, you’ll see how Verkada’s smart tech makes it easier to monitor remotely, respond faster, and create safer, more welcoming places to live.
Insider cyber attacks: the real impact of ransomware in 2025
Thursday 25 September | 10:00 to 11:00 | Teams
Ransomware attacks are evolving along with their consequences and when an attack hits, it doesn’t just expose your data, it compromises your whole organisation. In Sophos’ 2025 Ransomware Report, for the third year running, cyber attack victims identified exploited vulnerability as the most common technical root cause of attack.
Join Phoenix and Sophos for an insightful and eye-opening session as they partner with cyber security expert, Jon Hope to unpack the key findings from Sophos’ brand-new 2025 State of Ransomware Report. This session dives into the real accounts behind the statistics, based on a vendor-neutral survey of 3.3K organisations.
In issue 17.3 of Government Technology magazine
Start with page 44, where President Kurt Frary’s written Reimagining Services: For Us and Residents. Then you can move on to the rest of the magazine. There’s plenty to tackle:
- What it means to seize the AI opportunity. techUK’s Usman Ikhlaq reflects on how industry leaders are tackling trust, infrastructure and talent to scale AI responsibly 📝
- Driving Manchester’s public transport transformation with data and AI 🚋
- This is also on the agenda for the members’ only meeting Socitm in the North West on Friday 19 September 👍
- Leading the AI revolution in local government: the Derby City Council story 😍
- How Ordnance Survey location data supports wildfire preparedness across Britain 🔥
- How Manchester City Council is reimaging public services through community-led tech 🏙️
- Teamwork, technology and training: how to build a strong unitary authority – Wiltshire Council’s Sally Kimber shares learning and advice from merging 5 district councils into 1 unitary 🔢
- How local communities can bridge the digital divide 📱
Thank you for reading (or scrolling) this far! Just one more thing…
A few things I’ve been doing and looking at this week:
- Skipping through this Copilot onboarding guide I spotted on LinkedIn.
- Registering for the Hey Geraldine webinar at 10am on Friday 12 September that aims to answer ‘What happens when you design AI with empathy at its core?
- Trying to remember why pre-holiday me thought this was a good idea to sign up for: Squiggly Careers Skills x AI Sprint
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 note thanun on Unsplash