What next for the Local Government Digital Service Standard?

The consultation on the draft Local Government Digital Service Standard closes today. If you haven't been following what's been happening, you can read the story so far about the workshop day at the Government Digital Service (GDS) and that it's supported by Cabinet Office Minster Matt Hancock.

For the next couple of weeks the Standards Steering Group will be working their way through all the comments and feedback sent in. We meet on 6 April and will release the first version of the Standard proper not long after.

And that'll be it then, job done? Well, not quite.

Then the hard work starts because the process of getting the Standard incorporated into how each council works will be different for every authority across the country. To help with this we'll be setting up regional peer networks.

Peer networks will not only assist the advocates of the Standard in each council to get their message across to their internal audience, for those that do adopt the Standard, they can become regional peer assessment groups, much like the GDS assessment panels.

That doesn't mean we'll be getting rid of resources like the LocalGov Digital Slack Team but sometimes it's better to meet face-to-face and you can only do this regularly with those local to you.

Councils work at different speeds, but by September we should have the first councils starting to use the Standard so we'll be looking to organise the first Standard Summit for those leading the way to attend.

If you work for a council, and if you haven't already, then I urge you to get involved with the Local Government Digital Service Standard. The more of us that do, the better the services local government offers the public will be.

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