LG/WWW

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it wasn't until I left this year's LocalGovCamp, held on 29 September in Birmingham, that I realised just how much I'd missed the event and some the familiar faces I'd still been talking to online, but not seen in-person for over two years. Encouragingly there were also many for whom this year was their first, and it's their passion and new ideas help that keep LocalGovCamp alive. There were three main I took away from LocalGovCamp 2022. We're still talking about collaboration in silos: Encapsulating the problem in microcosm, there were a number of individual sessions in separate rooms asking, why can't local government collaborate and work together more.  This isn't a criticism of the event, the topics at LocalGovCamp are driven by it's attendees, but it did highlight the need for more joined up thinking round this.  That said, there are some promising signs around collaboration, but more on this later. Open

Today I officially stood down as Chair of the LocalGov Digital Steering Group after six years. Delivering the Local Government Service Standard, playing a part in the creation of the Government Service Standard and the Local Digital Declaration, and the membership expanding to thousands of people working in and around local government are just a few highlights of those six years. That time has also seen a huge change in the perception of digital in local government.  Necessitated by austerity and accelerated by COVID, digital is now seen as an enabler for change rather than just a medium for communication in almost every local authority. The buzz around the art of the possible has matured into wide-scale delivery and as a result I’ve seen the output of once prolific tweeters and blog posters gone to the grindstone of getting things done. To some extent that has influenced my decision, but also work-life balance, given that running LocalGov Digital involves more time on top of one's