1.
Ba ckg rou n d
Change is coming to public services in Lambeth. The cooperative council is
Lambeth’s big idea for local government. It’s about giving people more
involvement and control of the services they use and the places where they live
by putting council resources in their hands.
Over the years, we have seen how cooperation between service providers, such
as the council, and those who use or are affected by services, such as residents
and communities, has resulted in public services that are more closely aligned
with people’s needs and expectations. In Lambeth, there are dozens of examples
of this approach in action, and this was the inspiration for the cooperative
council.
In addition, the aftermath of recession and the deepest cuts in Government
funding for a generation, demanded a reform of public services – they simply
could not continue to be delivered in the same ways.
The cooperative council shows that this ethos - of meaningful partnership and
cooperation - is the foundation on which public services can be run in years to
come.
The cooperative council aims to:
• Turn more citizens from p a ssi v e reci p i en t s into a ct i v e
sh a p ers of services
• Deliver more effective, m ore resp on si v e serv i ces by giving users
more control
• S t ren g t h en ci v i l soci et y so it’s better able to deal with challenges
• Do things ‘wi t h ’ our communities rather than ‘t o’ our communities
This is an opportunity to think creatively and realistically about local public
services, with the prospect of improved, more responsive service delivery as the
result.
Th e ov era l l G ood for Not h i n g ch a l l en g e
Our challenge is to gather together key stakeholders from across the
community to rapidly develop a set of practical and tangible ideas that enable
the council to engage with the local community and vice versa using digital
technology.
The output and learning from this first exploration will form the basis for future
co-production of the Lambeth co-operative digital presence – online, mobile
and other emerging technologies.
Th e b ri ef
To use the 2 days to accelerate the co-production and development of the
Lambeth Council digital platform
- getting stakeholders directly involved in the identifying what’s most
needed to communicate with the community and how best to deliver it
- establishing a blueprint for future development
2.
This brief is exciting as it is the first time that the council have opened up the
development to directly involve users - residents, council staff, councillors,
local businesses and experts.
The digital team are already working with a group of local web experts - some
of whom will be on hand to share ideas and learning to date.
They have also developed an idea of how the site should be built, and what
potential platforms to use, with a number of key principles agreed:
1. The site will be open source
2. The site should be managed using a CMS, supporting devolved content
editors adding and amending content in departments across the council
AND in the community (also with the ability to publish
widgets/applications)
3. The site should be built iteratively and incrementally
4. The site should be co-produced
5. The site should be co-operative
Where there is a skills/knowledge gap is in 4 and 5
This is where we would most benefit from help and feedback from the different
groups of users – especially in response to different potential ideas/prototypes
for how the site should work that can be further developed at the next stage
P ot en t i a l ou t p u t s
1. A process model/methodology/guidance for how to co-produce (and
usability test) a cooperative website, enabling the community to design
and build the site
2. Fleshing out the tender document/requirements/BRD for the site
3. Project plan for building the website cooperatively
4. Stakeholder map
5. Ideas on integrating social media/other methods to enable the final
website to be cooperative
6. Reviewing and advising on open source CMS solutions
7. Draft designs
8. Top tasks
9. Information architecture
10.Global experience dictionary/consistent user experience
11.Establishing how else stakeholders would like to coproduce the site
3.
Parameters (to consider for future developments)
-‐ Budget for both technology and staffing must be agreed prior to this
project starting
-‐ The site must meet accessibility requirements
-‐ The project will be staffed by one project manager and 2 web editors
(not full time). Other staff, probably within departments, to work on
content migration.
-‐ .gov.uk principles – meet user needs, user feedback and constant
testing, priority on the common case, consistent user experience
-‐ SOCITM principles – think customer, top tasks, go mobile
Ou t of scop e
-‐ Transactions
-‐ Eforms
-‐ Bookings
-‐ Authentication/log-in/customer accounts
-‐ A final website
-‐ Choosing the technology and supplier (because of procurement
rules)
