techUK partners with MHCLG’s Local Digital Collaboration Unit for a series of quarterly virtual events for suppliers
techUK is delighted to be partnering with the Local Digital Collaboration Unit (LDCU) at the Ministry for Housing and Local Government (MHCLG) for a series of quarterly supplier briefings. These events will be an opportunity for early supplier engagement and updates from Local Digital on their key workstreams.
As a supporter of the Local Digital Declaration, techUK is pleased to continue working with the LDCU, acting as the go to for suppliers to engage with the team and provide a forum to hear the latest Local Digital updates.
The Local Digital Declaration
Since its launch in 2018 the Declaration now has over 250 local public service signatories and LDCU has funded 35 projects through multiple phases of work and across five rounds of funding - including their relatively recent C-19 Challenge. Through the Local Digital Fund, they have given out nearly £5 million to support local councils to work together on projects that improve how key services are delivered by using digital approaches and technologies. In February 2021, a new iteration to the fund was announced, the Local Digital Continuous Funding Model (read more in the announcement blog) with 15 projects receiving follow on funding through the CFM so far this year.
Key workstreams
As part of the quarterly events suppliers will be able to receive updates of the key workstreams which include:
The Local Digital Declaration includes a commitment to the continuous improvement of cyber security practice to support the security, resilience and integrity of our digital services and systems.
As part of this, in 2020 a dedicated Local Digital team began a piece of work to explore how MHCLG can support local authorities to reduce the incidence and impact of cyber attacks, and support sustainable cyber health.
MHCLG are providing expertise and support to identify issues and gaps in local authority cyber security. They begun by working with councils who completed the Mitigating Malware and Ransomware survey in February 2020.
They want to provide guidance, tools and good practice, and to agree on a roadmap for cyber enhancement. This will increase councils’ resilience against ransomware attacks. This will also help cyber security professionals within local authorities to communicate with, and get future budget and priority, from senior leaders.
Cyber Health
In February 2021, an alpha project began work to develop a tool and framework that will support local authorities to achieve a recommended level of cyber health. This will help local authorities to apply cyber security standards and guidance, and assess where they are against a baseline.
This work is a continuation from the Local Digital Cyber team’s discovery into cyber security at local authorities back in June 2020. Read more in their kick off blog
Planning reform
Planning for the Future white paper was launched on 6 August 2020, setting out the Government's proposals for "once in a generation" reform of England's planning system. During the initial consultation period, techUK held a roundtable with MHCLG to gather as many views from across the sector to better understand the opportunities and challenges of the reforms to the tech sector.
If you'd like to learn more about techUK's Local Public Services Programme and membership get in touch with [email protected]
The first MHCLG Local Digital Collaboration Unit Supplier Show & Tell will be taking place on the 12 May 2021
Georgina Maratheftis
Georgina is techUK’s Associate Director for Local Public Services
