The innovation underpinning the Local Digital Declaration is that it provides a platform for cultural change for digital transformation. It surmounts blockers where leadership may not fully understand nuances around the benefits of digital practices such as open standards, shared learnings and new procurement frameworks and practices. It is written in non-technical language to accommodate all levels of understanding, highlighting the benefits of building digital services in an open and supportive community against open standards.

The Local Digital Declaration launched in July 2018 with over 40 co-publishers. Local authorities, influencers and private sector suppliers are now able to sign up. The declaration is being socialised by the co-publishers via their own communication channels and engagement practices to encourage take-up.

The co-publishers continue to support local authorities with their own unique commitments, for example the Government Digital Service is running a consultation with local authorities to include their voice and needs in the next published version of the Digital Service Standard.

The Local Digital Declaration was crafted from conception to product to delivery through collaboration between central and local public sector colleagues. Opinion and influence was sought and incorporated from all levels of government - from digital influencers to ministerial support and outreach. Private and public sector influencers also contributed. Each party was able to highlight and champion a different area of influence on the local authority sector.

UK local authorities have been the most vocal stakeholder group in support of the Local Digital Declaration. The platform website will be their route into support from central government but also an avenue to support and collaboration with each other.

The beneficiaries of the declaration will be citizens, who will be able to access services that meet their needs as these services develop in line with the users-first digital development models outlined in the declaration principles.

The first success measurement for the Local Digital Declaration is demand. 144 public sector organisations have signed up to the Local Digital Declaration. These organisations from across central, local and public sector influencers, alongside the private sector, agree with the principles for best digital practice and are committing to support digital transformation for local authorities. This demonstrates there is substantial collective demand to influence a positive change towards digital services that impact on citizens.

Success will continue to be measured in the number of local authorities who sign up to the declaration and access the training opportunities. It will take 18 months of continued development of support to be able to track an uplift in key markers such as local authorities accessing the UK Digital Marketplace and developing digital transformation strategies.

The UK Local Government sector is geographically and politically diverse. In addition, there is a wide spectrum of understanding around what digital transformation means to an organisation. Engagement on the declaration had to take into consideration over 400 nuances to conclude with a piece of work that remains impactful for a desired cultural change but mindful of the separate considerations and autonomous nature of local authorities.

Engagement was detailed and consisted of many workshops being carried out across the UK. Drafts of the declaration were managed with painstaking change control to ensure all stakeholders were represented. The team was fortunate to have been working at a time when there was universal desire for stakeholders to work together. Where there were differences of opinion, these were addressed and compromises made. On rare occasions when a compromise was not achieved, it was accepted that stakeholder would need to withdraw from participation.

The Local Digital Declaration is designed to help local authorities ‘fix the plumbing’ of digital to ensure they can scale around users and expectations for infrastructure and services. It is building a policy that will form the basis for guiding principles on what good digital is that any local authority, regardless of size, location or political governance, can follow. It is because so many local authorities have tried and failed to digitally transform in isolation that there is such groundswell and support for a unified approach.

The ability to share good practice is highly valued. Recruitment for digital professionals remains an issue within the public sector and is compounded in pockets around the UK where there is no digital community. Local authorities recognise the Declaration offers an opportunity to utilise other local authorities' work by ensuring the adoption of open standards and scalability at the centre of the original briefs.

The Local Digital Declaration can be replicated as an approach to unite diverse public sector organisations in a united mission. The model is developed around intense and detailed engagement. The concept of targeting leaders to steer the way towards creating a common non-technical declaration that draws on published and agreed best practice can be translated across geographic boundaries as well as sectors.

The declaration was designed to be signed off at a Chief Executive level and with these individuals as the primary audience. However the demand and understanding of opportunities and benefits is held by the 'digital doers' - those who have a specific role in providing frontline services in a digital way to UK citizens. Retrospectively, and moving forward, the team working on the Local Digital Declaration could look to address the divide between the digital doers and their leaders. While training is being offered via a separate fund via MHCLG for leadership, GDS can and will do more to bridge the communications and understanding gap between these levels of influencer.