Moving forward. Moving faster. Moving together.

Welcome to our newsletter, bringing you all the latest from the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government. In this newsletter, we bring you a detailed update on what has been happening across the Digital Partnership throughout the last month and details of upcoming activities. 

If you have any queries regarding any of the content within this newsletter, please get in touch.

Blog: Refreshing the Digital Strategy for Scotland.

Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, Cosla and the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government are working together to refresh our joint Digital Strategy for Scotland. Discover more about the process in the second blog of the series, written by our Chief Digital Officer, Colin Birchenall.

Launch of the Digital Office Resource Centre.

We're excited to announce the launch of our brand-new Resource Centre, designed to make it easier for you to access key information on our initiatives and resources to support your digital transformation journeys. This centralised communication site will offer a wealth of information and tools to help you stay informed and engaged.

What you will find on the Resource Centre:

• Overview of Our Initiatives: Discover our initiatives available to support your local authority with digital transformation.
• Access to Resources: Easily find and utilise resources available to support your digital initiatives.
• Dedicated Collections: Browse through key themes of interest with our organised collections.
• Digital Office: On Demand: Catch up on our latest event recordings at your convenience.
• Upcoming Events: Register for upcoming events and read our latest newsletters to stay up-to-date.

Through our continued collaboration with Digital Partnership organisations, we will use this platform to share resources to support digital transformation across the sector. Make sure you are signed up to our newsletter to hear about our latest releases. 

Recap of Digital Council Week.

To celebrate the launch of our new Resource Centre, we hosted Digital Council Week from the 24th to the 28th of March. Throughout this week, we shared a series of live and pre-recorded events in collaboration with our partners, as well as unveiling new resources on the centre.

Each day focused on a key theme: 

• Monday: Digital Leadership
• Tuesday: Data Driven 
• Wednesday: Innovation 
• Thursday: User Focused
• Friday: Partnership and Collaborative Working

Martyn Wallace, Chief Digital Officer of the Digital Office, stated: "Digital Council Week demonstrates that the digital transformation of local government and the enhancement of community outcomes are reliant on partnership working and collaboration. We hope this week has been beneficial and encourages you to support our initiatives. We express our gratitude to all our partners for their contributions and involvement in making this week successful."  

Explore all the valuable resources shared during Digital Council Week in the dedicated collection available on the Resource Centre.

Recording Available: CACI Data & Child Poverty Playbook.

For Data Driven day of Digital Council Week, we hosted an engaging live session with CACI, attracting 80 participants!

In October 2024, COSLA secured access to CACI's Acorn and Paycheck products, with 23 Councils already participating in the first year of the agreement. This initiative leverages the experience of councils that have utilised this data to enhance policy and planning decision-making. By using detailed demographic data, we can enable targeted interventions across Scotland.

During our session, colleagues from CACI discussed their data sets and introduced the Child Poverty Playbook, developed based on the experiences of several Scottish councils.

Access the recording and Child Poverty Playbook in the Digital Council Week Collection available on our Resource Centre.

Transformation through collective process mapping.

Further to our exciting and insightful in person event with Engage Process as part of Digital Council week, we are more eager than ever to begin collective process mapping and populate the shared library for Scottish councils. 

Our practical sessions focussed on: 

• Processes that have already been mapped
• Benefits realised 
• The implementation of the handbook for councils to co-ordinate their processes 
• Collective mapping from 'as is processes' to 'to be processes' and how we can re-engineer through commonalities
• Challenges to sharing processes with the necessary governance to overcome those challenges
• Priority focusses with discussions around legislation 

Thank you to everyone who attended, your input is greatly appreciated to drive this initiative and we look forward to our next community call to action to take forward our next steps.

Six discussion points to help assess equality impact of AI-based technology.

Under their Strategic Plan 2022-25, the Equality and Human Rights Commission undertook a project to understand how public bodies in Scotland consider equality when they use artificial intelligence (AI).

Public bodies told us that they could benefit from concise prompts to use with suppliers to develop their understanding of the equality impacts of AI-based technology. In response, they developed a short guide with six discussion points to support public bodies to consider the equality impact of an AI-based technology, particularly when working with suppliers.

The guide will help you think about equality impacts throughout your consideration and use of specific AI-based technologies. For example, you might use the guide to help inform a potential procurement exercise, ongoing contract management discussions, or a review of your use of technology. The guide will support you to comply with the public sector equality duty and specific duties in Scotland.

The Shared ARC Platform Wins TSA ITEC Partnership Award.

This recognition is a testament to the fantastic collaboration and dedication demonstrated by everyone involved in what we truly believe is a ground-breaking initiative.

This achievement would not have been possible without the unwavering efforts of our incredible service providers in Scotland. Your commitment to excellence and relentless pursuit of innovation have been the driving forces behind the success of this programme. Your hard work and dedication has made a significant impact on the lives of countless individuals for decades to come, and for that, we are truly grateful.

This award belongs to all of us. It is a celebration of our collective effort, dedication, and shared vision. Let us continue to work together to push the boundaries of what is possible and to make a lasting difference in the lives of those we serve.

Upcoming Events

TAY Cities Deal: TAY5G Programme.

In collaboration with CENSIS, we are covering ongoing Smart Infrastructure projects within the 5G Innovation Region Programmes. Join us for our third webinar, which will be led by the Tay Cities Deal and the Scotland 5G Centre.

Over recent years, Dundee City Council has managed the Tay Cities Deal: Tay5G Programme, creating a testbed in Dundee and collaborating with S5GC for technical expertise. Eight projects have been delivered, with the final four now underway.

The programme aims to stimulate engagement with, and adoption of, advanced communications, including 5G. It is hoped that this work will build on the diverse solutions that can help public and private sectors carry out service delivery, marketing, training/skills development, content production, manufacturing/productivity and informing R&D. Tay5G projects span creative/digital industries, agriculture, transport, offshore services and smart cities/connected communities. The Virtual Production project has been a significant factor in Abertay University leading the Scotland hub of the CoSTAR programme funded by the UK Government.

Date: Wednesday 23rd April
Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Microsoft Teams