Proving the Pivotal Role of ICT

The Computing Awards Shortlist has been announced.


One of the work-plan items that I hope the National Advisory Council will agree to at its meeting, next week, is to update Socitm’s Strategy. The last published Strategy 2005-2009, was excellent and still quite relevant but, as might be expected in our fast-changing environment, there are a host of new developments to be accommodated, and a review will be very timely. The strategy may have been good, but unfortunately seems to have been a well-kept secret! When I went to the website to look for it, it wasn’t there – but it is now. http://www.socitm.gov.uk/socitm/Library/Socitm+strategy+document.htm


Paul Masters, from Leicester City Council, joined Martin Greenwood, Roland Waterhouse, Doug Maclean, Vicky Sargent, Janet de Rochefort, Chris Morton and I at Vicky’s offices in Birmingham to discuss development of the Socitm Measurement branded services. As previously mentioned (20th August) Socitm Measurement will integrate a number of existing and new services, with a new focus on demonstrating effective use of ICT – on the basis that there’s no point in having excellent ICT if it isn’t exploited by its customers’ businesses!

In terms of the market positioning, we agreed that Socitm policy and service development in this area would support the CIO agenda, working with the board and executive to reinforce ICT’s pivotal role in business transformation. We will seek the support and co-operation of other key stakeholders, like SOLACE, the LGA, Intellect and RIEPs. Socitm Measurement services are also being designed to support new partnership developments, including Local and Multi Area Agreements.

We discussed how service outputs would comprise an organisational performance dashboard. It’s likely we’ll develop a baseline offering through a self-assessment toolkit, with customised services through a subscription model to address weaknesses identified through gap analysis. The next steps will be to publish a prospectus, describing in simple, non-technical language the core service components. There will be a workshop on 19th November to further discuss and build-upon the requirements with Members. In the meantime, I plan to base my welcoming speech at the Annual Conference on the proposed new direction of travel for these Socitm Services.