Digitalisation Almanac

For local councils across the England and Wales, improving their digital tools, processes and ways of working has become one of their most important priorities. But despite pockets of collaboration and working groups, digital efforts can sometimes feel quite siloed, with councils not always benefitting from the skills, experiences and support of their peers. Councils often also lack a shared language about digitalisation, which makes it difficult to benchmark their performance against others, or identify where digital can have the greatest outcome.

To solve this problem, the LGA created a framework of 12 strategic outcome areas for digitalisation, developed in consultation with the sector. The framework is intended to promote the use of a common language and shared strategic outcomes by local government when engaging with central government, private, voluntary, and community sectors as well as with one another.

The LGA then worked with PUBLIC to create a simple, user-friendly Digitalisation Almanac - launched on 21 March 2023 - which is an annual resource providing practical guidance, case studies and assessment tools for councils to put the 12 strategic outcomes framework into practice.

Councils can use the Almanac to help build a strong digital culture, prioritise work programmes, self-assess strategic aims, mitigate common challenges, learn from best practice and engage with colleagues, other councils, central government and suppliers.

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The Almanac was developed in consultation with 50+ local councils, digital government experts and third-sector organisations. It has created a single source of information and knowledge sharing for the sector to understand and benchmark their performance for different digital themes. The content of the Almanac has also been used to provide ‘Digital Foundations’ training for elected Councillors, to help them to understand the key digital challenges affecting their councils, and where they can make the greatest impact.