Does your ICT service deliver value for money? Does it enable and support change in the organisation? Is it efficiently run? Is it pro-active in seeking out the most appropriate technical solutions to meet business needs? And how can you tell?

All councils use application software to help them to operate efficiently. Finance systems help the council to manage its financial resources, plan budgets and control its spend within the budget limits. HR systems help to manage staffing and payroll information and in some cases to manage the HR resource to enable career development, ensure continuity planning, and manage skills in relation to need.

Why pose these questions? Your ICT function may deliver 99.9% service availability and deliver projects on time and on budget, but this is no longer enough. Unlocking the value of information by making it available to citizens, businesses, partners and employees just when they want it, in the format that they need it, and only what they need and no more, requires inspiration, imagination and innovation.

Many IT services have undergone major cuts and restructuring in recent months, often resulting in the loss of some of the best people, and of the source of much of the detailed knowledge that helps to make the ICT service perform.

We have the skills and the tools to help you achieve a website that delivers for your council - that is a website that gives real value in terms of the services it delivers to your customers and the savings it makes for the council. We cover all that is needed, summarised below:

For a step by step guide, click on the diagram to see more detail

Creating an effective website for your council is not easy - and certainly isn't something you can leave to the IT service, or to corporate communications section to deliver for you. Creating a website that delivers real value to the organisation, and real savings in cost takes a corporate effort and requires the following essential elements:

The cost of the desktop, when multiplied by the number of devices in use in a council, is a very significant expense. The variability shown from the Socitm Benchmarking data on desktop costs shows the extent of the savings that are possible - and these are only touching the surcface. Driving down the cost to 50% of its current value is certainly not out of the question.

To be clear about what the costs of the desktop consist of, the costs are made up of:

The Council of the Isles of Scilly engaged Socitm Consulting to help them through the Code of Connection approvals to enable access to the UK governments’ many agencies.

In an effort to make “Learning” more focused on the specific needs of our membership, we have reviewed our course offerings and launched a completely new programme for the next 12 months. The new programme offers a wider range of course, at more locations, and with more detail provided on each, to help you judge better who to nominate for the course, and the likely benefits to be achieved from it.