People often talk about getting on the property ladder for first time buyers and this would possibly be the talking point for many graduates who have manage to secure their first job and now considering their first real estate purchase. But nowadays, graduates are faced with a different conundrum. They are faced with the challenge of getting ON the job ladder.

The job ladder

Now you might be wondering, why do I say job ladder and not a career ladder? Well take this snipet I found on Yahoo! Answers

This basically draws a picture how frustrating the job market can be in the UK and graduates are lucky to even get a job than have a job that matches their degree. So therefore, what we are talking about here is the job ladder and not a career ladder.

To highlight this matter even further, last year the government had to deliver a crash course for unemployed graduates on how to get a job as the situation worsens.  This story was covered by the BBC on their website.

Crash course on how to get a job

Unemployed Britons

It’s a known fact nowadays that its getting more an more difficult to secure a job and there are rare to come by and with the government cuts, it will make matters even worst for local governments as this might lead to more people in unemployment, on benefits and create less economic prosperity in their local area.

Its not only graduates that are not getting jobs, there are voices echoing those who are skilled but also fall into the unemployed bracket as they are being made redundant.  Polls on specialised recruitment sites are also expressing some anxiety and uncertainty of the future

.

https://www.ex-mil.co.uk/

How does unemployment effect local governments?

There are major negative effects for local governments if unemployment rises in their area. Unemployment is a very devastating thing to go through and this may lead to the following to occur: -

Economic effects

1. Increased expenditure as increased rate of social welfare, because more people are unemployed.
2. Decreased income as less PAYE (Pay As You Earn) because less people are employed.
3. Decreased income as less goods and services produced because of increased unemployment and people would have less money to spend because of being unemployed so less goods and services bought so lesser demand.
4. If people are unemployed, production of goods and provision of services falls off, and simultaneously, the people who are unemployed lack the ability to purchase goods and services.
5. Investors will also be reluctant to invest any money in the production of goods or the provision of services because when production and consumption are down, there is no opportunity to get a return on the investment.

Social effects

1. Crime rate rise as people are unable to meet their financial needs through work.
2. Lead to a person to go to illegal activities such as drugs.  It can have detrimental effects for not only the individual but for their local community as a whole.
3. An increase in the poverty population as unemployment leads to no source of income and without money for basic needs.
4. Divorce rates often rise because people cannot solve their financial problems.
5. The rate of homelessness rises, as do the rates for mental and physical illness.
6. Homes will be repossessed or abandoned, and neighbourhoods deteriorate as a result.

As a result, the ability of local government to provide will also be seriously compromised. When there is high unemployment, people pay less in income taxes and also pay less in sales taxes because they purchase fewer goods and services. This leads to less in the way of public services, which includes everything from police and fire protection to the staffing for local councils swimming pools and rubbish pickup.

A fast-forward scenario

John Smith loses his job, cuts back his spending in every area, including wants (eating out, movies, trips to the amusement park) and even needs (shoes for his kids, or even meat for meals at home).  If John is one of several thousand who were laid off in a community, and they’re all cutting back spending in the same way he is, soon the local grocery stores, restaurants, cinemas, department stores, etc will begin to register fewer profits.  A trend like that, allowed to continue, might lead to layoffs in the stores, restaurants, cinemas, etc, and the cycle will begin anew.  For an economy, local or national, to thrive, people must be spending money, and for people to spend money, they need to be employed.

Effect of unemployment on the employed

Unemployment causes a greater reliance on government assistance.  This increases economic stress on social programs as well as on taxpayers.  Taxpayers will feel they are paying for other peoples needs instead of their own. This will lead to taxpayers feeling that their government has treated them unfairly. This may be down to the quality of quantity of services they received being below the adequate level of need.

How unemployment has turned to Web 2.0

Many recruiters nowadays have turned to web 2.0 to help them find suitable candidates for a job. Recruiters and job seekers both are setting up LinkedIn Groups, Twitter, YouTube, Podcast and Internet radio, Facebook pages, iPhone apps and blogs to either attract job seeker or even job seeking itself. Recruiters are even now developing social media strategies to build their business. This is a indicator of how times are changing and traditional methods are no longer practical or attractive to people either seeking or offering employment. You can download a copy of “Social media for Recruitment – A practical guide on using social media to build your business”. If you are interested in looking at it from a HR/employers point of view and want to be more active in social media to find suitable candidates for your company, you can view the “Web 2.0 and HR: A discussion paper” below.

The Jobcentre Plus

The Jobcentre Plus website is the UK’s most visited recruitment website with over a million visitors each week. This means that Jobcentre Plus content is a valuable resource for both job seekers and employers. Local council websites are under more and more stress to cut costs where possible. Therefore a Jobcentre Plus widget for customized job search for your local area and a redundancy information widget can help local council websites with valuable content and give citizens the information that they need in this hard time.  This type of partnership with councils are to be encouraged and embraced if we are to take up the Big Society challenge.

Partnerships are most basic example of the Big Society

According to 2010 Conservative’s manifesto, the Big Society is about transferring power from central to local government.  Therefore in small way, by sharing information, widgets, apps and assets, we are driving Big Society in the right direction.

Local Directgov developed this widget with Innovate at http://innovate-apps.direct.gov.uk and strategy for you to use the widget effectively as well as encourage other users to embed your customized widget on their blog or website.

Local Directgov will also be sharing some usability tips for local council wiki on their CoP, so be sure to sign up as a member to gain the full benefit of how-to videos, sharing assets and knowledge.

The truth is, we should start sharing and USING what all our partners have to offer. Difficult times calls for a time of unity and doing with less. But it doesn’t mean that we are in any means short of innovation or resources. What we lack is the ability to ‘work together’, awareness and humbleness…

Hope this was useful!

Liz Azyan

http://www.facebook.com/LGEOResearch

http://www.twitter.com/Liz_Azyan

Possibly Related Posts

• What are widgets? How can local government use widgets?
• Video: Online Booking Widgets to Embed on LA websites, Facebook & other Web 2.0 platforms
• Live Coverage of the ‘Really Useful’ Event – Data Discovery Workshop #RU11
• Grab the last few tickets left for The Really Useful Event – Data Discovery Workshop #RU11
• Let’s not just make open data sexy… let’s make it really useful!

Interview with Gemma Walford – Service Improvement Manager for Culture and Environment

We also managed to ask Gemma some additional questions below.

What do you feel is the biggest barrier internally and externally?

I think the biggest barrier for my project aimed at improving online services has been the absence of a measurement framework to show the business that the website should have business goals similar to face to face or telephone channels. Only once the online business goals have been set can we get into the interesting stuff around how we want to translate these goals into online solutions and measure their effectiveness with our users.

Once the business can see how the new process works, and understands what the measurement tools are showing they can take ownership of their pages and use them as a business channel which can be more effective than face to face and telephone, and potentially much cheaper.

And how would the website redesign effect users and the council?

The website redesign will pull together the top ‘things’ our users want to do quickly and cleanly. For example we will make it really easy to see straight off what services can be done without picking up the phone or queuing up in a council office.

Conclusion

Its clear that this website redesign is a priority for everyone at Camden, both employees and users. It is important that we are able to communicate our progress and findings to everyone so we can make improvements and progress as we move along. If you would like to participate and help us with this project, we would very much love to get you feedback and involvement. You can do this by registering for volunteering for this project here.

If you are a student who wishes to get involved as part of your research project, please email liz.azyan@camden.gov.uk to express your interest.

Link to original post here

Possibly Related Posts

• Local government website redesign project phases and business requirements for Camden Council UK
• Citizens ‘wish list’ and frustrations with local government websites
• Usability Testing and Research Findings
• Questionnaire Design for Website Redesign Project
• Camden’s Website Redesign Project User Research

Possibly Related Posts

• Videos: Web 2.0 – Transforming Government
• Politics 2.0: How Bay Area Technology helped get Barack Obama elected
• Government-to-Citizen Communications: Utilising multiple digital channels effectively
• Web 2.0 & social media for patients
• Cool Health Related Web 2.0 & Social Media Stuff by and for Patients

Learning Pool’s Community Evangelist: Dave Briggs from Liz Azyan on Vimeo.

Hope this was useful!

Liz xxx

Possibly Related Posts

• The Social Media Challenges within UK Local Government
• Exclusive Social Media 101 video with Dave Briggs
• Learning Pool CELEB Event: Liz meets Ian Laughton and talks about flexible working in local government
• Learning Pool at ScotWeb2 2009 on Collaborative Learning and Saving Money
• Open Cover Letter: I’m back on the market. Give me a challenge and the opportunity to make a real difference

Social Media 101 with Dave Briggs at Learning Pool from Liz Azyan on Vimeo.

Dave Briggs writes about digital engagement and community building for government. Dave is Learning Pool‘s Community Evangelist as well as a freelance consultant.

Hope this was useful!

Liz xxx

Possibly Related Posts

• The Social Media Challenges within UK Local Government
• What’s a “Community Evangelist” I wonder…? Let’s find out! ;-)
• Details of my next speaking event: Social Media – Tools for innovation and efficiency
• My presentation in Birmingham 22/9/10. Slides and recorded live web cast available.
• Open Cover Letter: I’m back on the market. Give me a challenge and the opportunity to make a real difference

Almost everyday my inbox is filled with information or invitations to attend conferences and events on digital engagement, e-government, social media, local government and everything web 2.0. There’s some interesting conferences and events coming up on my calendar and I thought I’d share one with my readers that I have been commissioned to cover.

Why it matters….

This particular conference grabs my attention because of the issues that will be discussed and the speakers that will presenting. This conference is in response to the final Digital Britain Report that was released in June 2009.  You can find a copy of that report here. I followed the launch of this report online and through twitter and saw that there was still a lot of doubt, confusion and debates amongst practitioners on what the report delivers.  So I’m quite intrigued myself to find out exactly how far we’ve moved forward from then till now and what the future will look like.

Take a look. This event will be happening on the 6th of October 2009 at the Church House Conference Centre.

The link to this event is here.

Digital Engagement – Empowering Citizens & Government through Digital Innovation will explore the key issues around the use of digital technologies in the public sector and determine how Government can engage more effectively with citizens to increase social inclusion and efficiency whilst delivering better public services.

This conference will examine the challenges and opportunities ahead in delivering a Digitally competent Britain, with examples of some of the most successful customer facing services and a look at how the public and private sectors can work together to build a strong Digital Infrastructure for the UK’s Public Services.

Another reason to attend this event is Michael Wesch….

News Flash: I have just been notified that Michael Wesch is unable to attend this event but there are still alot of other speakers that are equally interesting like Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox. So you will still be in for a treat! Check Martha’s video below.

When I was in NYC attending the Personal Democracy Forum 09 (PdF09) – thanks to FutureGov Consultancy who sponsored my trip there – I had the absolute honour to be in the presence of and audience of Michael Wesch‘s presentation on YouTube.  I was in complete awe and actually shed a few tears because I was overwhelmed by what I was seeing (Yes, I do cry quite easily! ) .

I guess it was the way he presented his facts, thoughts, quotes and examples in such a way that made total sense, simple and inspired alot of people without even trying that hard. In fact he received a greater standing ovation for his presentation than Vivek Kundra!!! Now that’s definitely a testament of how great this guy is…  He’s really likable and easy to relate to which is why I think his presentation had as much of an impact that it did.

Cold feet…

I was very very tempted to interview him when I bumped into him near the elevator at the PdF09 conference but I guess I just got cold feet and just didn’t manage to even open my mouth! But just in case you want to see for yourself, here’s a video that I just found of his presentation at the PdF09 event that I attended recently. I was just a few feet away from the stage! Pls pls pls check it out!!! You won’t regret it, trust me!

Martha Lane Fox – Digital Inclusion Champion

And here is the programme.

08:15 Registration, refreshments and exhibition
09:00 Opening Remarks from Chair – MICHAEL CROSS
09:10 Keynote Address – ‘Digital Engagement – Empowering Citizens & Government through Digital Innovation’ – MARTHA LANE FOX
09:30 A Digitally Enabled Government for a Digital World – MARTIN FERGUSON
09:50 Universal Connectivity by 2012 – KIP MEEK
10:10 Industry Best Practice Case Study – Sponsored by Technology Strategy Board
10:30 Panel Question & Answer Session
10:45 Morning refreshments and networking with the Digital Engagement Exhibition
11:15 Digital Region – Digitally Transforming South Yorkshire – ROBERT LING
11:30 Industry Best Practice Case Study
11:45 NHS Choices – Care and Treatment the digital way – GARY ASHBY
12:00 Question and Answer Session
12:15 Seminar Session 1
13:00 Lunch, Networking & Exhibition
14:00 Seminar Session 2
14:45 Afternoon Networking – Tea & Coffee
15:15 Overcoming the Digital Divide – HELEN MILNER
15:30 Kent TV – Engaging Communities through Digital Television – ALEX CONNOCK & PETER GILROY
15:50 The impact of a Digital Government on Local Communities – RICHARD WILSON
16:10 Closing Panel Discussion – Digital Skills and Innovation for a Digital Britain – SPONSORED by DC10
Conference Close

So if you’re interested in the content of this presentation, you can book places for this conference here .

To find out more, take a look here. http://www.digitalengagementevent.com/

This event is presented to you by Ten Alps Events.

For the event guide, download here.

Twitter hashtag for this event is #digieng

Follow the events twitter here @digiengagement

Hope to see you guys there! Be sure to say hello to me

Liz xxx

Possibly Related Posts

• The Digital Engagement Event: Opening Remarks and Keynote Address Overview
• Live Blogging: Digital Engagement – Empowering Citizens and Government through Digital Innovation
• Mashups in government
• Let’s not just make open data sexy… let’s make it really useful!
• EpicStar SuperPost: Attempting to outlaw Facebook, Twitter and their lesser-known cousins may cruel your pitch with Gen Y staff

Ian Laughton has been the Director of Nomad since its inception in 2003. As Chair of the Nomad Forum his role has been the overall delivery of the 4 million pound original project across its range of partner local authorities and the delivery of a sustainable Nomad Forum, events and activity. Previously, Ian was Head of e-Government at Cambridgeshire County Council with responsibility for the delivery of e-government, modernisation and efficiency targets. He was also previously responsible for the ICT and Information Systems of the Social Services Directorate at Cambridgeshire CC. Before joining local government Ian worked in the private ICT sector and a number of charitable organisations delivering media and technology programmes.

So I managed to talk to Ian after his presentation and ask him to do a quick overview of what he presented to the CELEB crowd on Thursday morning.

Liz meets Ian Laughton – Director of Project Nomad and talks about flexible working in local government from Liz Azyan on Vimeo.

Here is the transcript of what he had to say…

• What is Nomad?

Nomad is a national project, focused on collecting together evidence and sharing expertise and learning about all aspects of flexible and mobile working in local authorities. Nomad has been running for 6 years now and originally an e-government project and now has been a self-funding project for the last 3 years.

Summary of Ian’s presentation

Ian talked about:-

1. Giving people a feel from across the UK on where councils are on with their move towards strategic use of modern way of working, flexible working. The fact that some of the factors driving that change quite a lot in the last year, with a quick look at that.
2. Also talks through our experience, what are the factors that make of os successful in a significant project and really although its about properties, its about ICT, management, leadership…. Its always come down to the people aspects. Are people really well-versed in what their trying to do, have you covered off all the people support and development aspects? Because if you haven’t done that, you won’t get the cultural change. You may get some minor transformation but actually the workforce will not adopt the new way of working in a way that actually produces the benefits that you originally set out in the business case.
3. So what we’ve been looking at are those factors that we’ve seen in what we think has been very successful implementations and just trying to share that information with colleagues here today and what nomad has is a wealth of material that is freely available via website to people that will help them access some of the best learning that is around and of course Learning Pool itself has got resources, management particularly and about some of the things you need to think about flexible working.

Barriers in local government for flexible working

Today I think alot of local authorities are struggling with the financial aspects of the investment of that they need to make to transform services. Money is in short supply for all sorts of reasons. So councils are perhaps having to trim back their ambition in this area but their also seeing increasing the need to deliver much more efficient services so there a real tussle going on for them about how they can produce these more effective and efficient services but in a more constraint circumstances.

Is there a need in change of behaviour?

Certainly one of the key things is people and it is about changing the behaviour of members of staff. Its about changing the behaviour at the very top of the organization so we need chief execs a senior managers to model these new ways of working. I mean you are not going to get very far in convincing people to move to open plan type setttings if all your chief execs still have cellular offices for example. So then they need to take a very practical steps like that but also you need to support your middle managers. Your first line managers who will be crucial on implementing and insisting on this new way of working.

How to convince CEOs to get with the programme!!!

Well, one very good way is to show them a good sound business case that shows money coming out of the system and being available to do other things, to support the actual frontline service delivery. A year or so ago, a lot of that was coming from the property piece, rationalizing property portfolios, that’s way down the agenda now obviously with the crash in property prices but what we’re seeing and have hard evidence of is increase productivity once you’ve made those changes.

So for example, a borough in the North West is quite clearly demonstrating its whole benefits in council tax. An area that is getting 50% more through the system with the same staffing complement being moved to these new ways of working. Now that’s a gain that no chief exec can avoid.

All this information is available on the Nomad website http://www.projectnomad.org.uk

How can Learning Pool help develop “new ways of working” in local government?

I think Learning Pool can help partly because its got alot of resources online around the whole management aspect of cultural change. Its got some good stuff on actually implementing flexible working. Its a delivery mechanism that actually works to the difuse and the diversify workforce when bringing people together for training in the old physical sense. Its much more problematic once you’re working force is sprinkled around your geographic area working different time zones and so on because that’s all apart of the flexible working.

End of Interview

Ian’s slides

Possibly Related Posts

• CELEB Event Coverage on board the HMS President, London
• What’s a “Community Evangelist” I wonder…? Let’s find out! ;-)
• Learning Pool CELEB Event: Liz meets Leon Yohai and talks about change management in local government
• Attention London Boroughs!: I’m becoming a CELEB for a day onboard the HMS President!
• Learning Pool at ScotWeb2 2009 on Collaborative Learning and Saving Money

Liz meets Leon Yohai – Assistant Director of Change Management LB of Greenwich and talks about change management from Liz Azyan on Vimeo.

Leon Yohai, Assistant Director of Change Management, London Borough of Greenwich

Leon Yohai has worked in local government for over 24 years in areas including regeneration, homelessness, tenancy services and policy. He is currently at the very heart of an ambitious modernisation and regeneration programme worth £800 million. It has 10 key strands which, taken as a whole, will modernise and regenerate both service delivery and the infrastructure of the borough.

Here is the transcript of my interview with Leon Yohai

Overview of Leon’s presentation

Well what I’ve talked about today is the relationship between service delivery and the property that the council owns. How the council funded its £800 million worth of transformation. The 10 strands that the council has got covering everything from new schools to childrens centre, to new face-to-face centre, a radical approach to IT, to space management and within that how the council created the modernisation programme. How it broke it up in manageable chunks, how it involved the public, the successes that its achieved. The lessons that its learnt so really alot of what I had to say today was around you manage change, how you take staff through that, how you fund that change.

What are your key management tips for change?

I would say the key thing is to understand is around leadership. Clear communication and people that really own the process and manage it through. Its got to be clearly scoped out at the beginning of the process. Its got to have clear milestones that can be achieved or changed if its not being achieved. And at the end of that process there’s got to be a clear understanding of the benefits that have been accrued on. So benefit realization and learning the lessons of what worked and what didn’t work is quite key to change management.

Where does leadership come from in LB of Greenwich?

In Greenwich, both the leader of the council and the chief executive have a vision on how the change should be implemented so the work we do is locate it within that vision.

So their grand vision then lead to the creation of the modernization team which allowed the ownership and the practical leadership to be expressed. But it would be fair to say that both the leader and the chief executive had the vision that lead to this in terms of the local leadership, the modernization team became an agent of change and assisted local leaders within the departments to manage through the changes that the council wanted to achieve. You almost get a corporate leadership that facilitates then enables those department to feel apart of that corporate center.

Often councils, because of their historical nature have had local leaderships that didn’t feel joined up so you have a borough engineer, borough librarian, that was actually thinking about the service not within the context of being a modern council but actually just within a local service target. But what you’ve got in Greenwich is something that is much more joined up and comprehensive approach.

What are the challenges in IT?

I think with IT, one of the biggest challenges are making sure that the change that comes through IT is not just for the sake of IT but its linked to the service delivery and the CAA targets that councils accept. Its understanding that some of the changes that need to bring about are not just within the council but their within the council and their partners. And the clear link between the partnerships that government would expect you to establish with the police, with NHS, with voluntary sector organizations.

NHS is a good example. The relationship between healthy living, poverty, living conditions and lifestyles. Now if your councils are opening leisure centres they want to have doctors prescribing more healthy living lifestyles and using some of the leisure facilities and having healthy living programmes, Greenwich has got one of those, a wellness programme with its partners called Greenwich Leisure. Getting the NHS involved in that and that way promoting healthier living and healthier lifestyles which assists a boroughs population and residence which is what this is all about, to live longer and enjoy their lives in a much more proactive way.

At the same time, working with partners in education, promoting educational development and tackling issues around crime and young people involved with gangs. Giving them diversionary projects to be involved with and targeting areas of the population is quite different from the way councils behaved in the past.

In the past, council were about cleaning the streets, managing the housing. Now the challenges faced are much more complicated. Because modern life has become much more complicated. And partner organizations need to be brought into those. The matter relates to the whole back office shared services discussions and you’ll see much more not just around contact centres but around service delivery, organizations working in partnership.

Does working with partners improve cost efficiency?

In the short term it takes time for people to establish the partnership and would mainly resource injection in terms of project management, in terms of capital. In the longer term, I think it will not only produce better services but it will also start to reduce the cost of buildings, reduce cost of IT, where you can share IT, telephony and introduce new ways of working or joined up. Different ways of say crime reduction and problem solving. Not always looking at solutions that are around criminalization of people but actually looking at the causes of crime as well as the outcomes. So its fair to say there are some people who do need custodial sentences and there are some people who can be diverted away at an earlier period. Working with young families through children centres, working with people through schools. You could have a much more proactive approach than the traditional line working individually.

How can Learning Pool help encourage change management?

Probably organizations such as Learning Pool can help facilitate change, can ehlp people access information easier and certainly within the workforce and probably perhaps looking at the public generally more people tend to use IT and the web to discover things, I think google has been everybody’s best friend.

So I think rather than sending members of staff to traditional training courses, the idea of people being able to tap in to an organization like Learning Pool and several others that exist, it gives you easier access to information and it helps a council design educational learning programmes for people while their on the job and that’s what’s important, so the public get a better service rather than waiting to go to a training course. They could just plug in to a computer and its got the information that you need and you could do it more easily. I think that’s one of the advantages of organizations like Learning Pool.

End of interview

Leon’s slides

Possibly Related Posts

• CELEB Event Coverage on board the HMS President, London
• Learning Pool CELEB Event: Liz meets Ian Laughton and talks about flexible working in local government
• What’s a “Community Evangelist” I wonder…? Let’s find out! ;-)
• Attention London Boroughs!: I’m becoming a CELEB for a day onboard the HMS President!
• Special Feature: Liz meets Christine Shakespeare, Winner of Learning Pool’s overall Customer of the Year Award 2009

The pandemic….

I know you might be thinking, this is old news but the fact of the matter is… we’re not really out of the woods yet.  There has been enough stress surrounding the swine flu pandemic since its outbreak and the impact has caused major panic and distress to governments and citizens everywhere. Its certainly a critical time for governments to act swiftly and effectively without putting anymore lives in danger.

This is obviously a very alarming situation to deal with no matter how prepared you are and if wrong decisions are made, the repercussions and reaction from the public can be damaging. Therefore it is essential that governments react appropriately and effectively handle the issue with a high level of sensitivity.

What is happening in local government in relation to swine flu…?

Governments, just like parents, have the duty to protect their children, in this case  - the citizens. But just like parents, sometimes its just not enough to protect their children physically, but it is essential to equip them with the knowledge to protect themselves.  Which is why organizations such as the Local Government Association (LGA) are providing briefings such as this so that local authorities can react to the situation effectively. Many considerations are taking place such as the following:-

LGA briefings example…

1. Where are we today and where we may go next?
2. LGA’s role in national emergencies
3. Management of excess deaths in a disease outbreak
4. Looking after vulnerable people
5. Business continuity planning
6. Lessons learned from a pandemic hotspot and making Birmingham’s schools resilient for the second wave

IDeA provides a checklist for councillors…

www.idea.gov.uk/swineflu

Local authorities play an important supporting role in planning for, and responding to, a pandemic flu outbreak, such as the swine flu (H1N1). It is important that councillors understand this role and contribute to its fulfilment as part of their community leadership role. This guide provides a checklist of what councillors can do to ensure their council is prepared.

Gov 2.0 doesn’t just apply on the forefront of public services…

I think we often forget that in our excitement in delivering Gov 2.0 services to the public, there is also an importance of conveying that same excitement and interest inwards. Council staff need to be just just as ’2.0′ as their citizens!  And to be able to do that, they need to be able to have a collaborative technology platform that is designed just for them to enhance their capabilities in their jobs and have the opportunity to share and collaborate amongst each other. This video might give you a better idea on why collaborative technologies is important.

Devon County Council helping other councils through Learning Pools Dynamic Learning Environment.

This brings us to an interesting case study on Devon County Council e-learning course for local authority social care workers through Learning Pools DLE. This course was authored by Karrisa Marker (Devon CC) who later on shared this e-learning course with other Learning Pool members in other local authorities for FREE! You can find full details of the case study here on Learning Pools Blog.

The Value of Repurposing: Open source e-learning courses to deliver effective and efficient services…

I love the whole concept of sharing and collaborating across local authorities to save cost and time. Nothing would make better sense because everyone wins! The brilliant thing about this is nobody is pointing fingers at one council saying, you have to develop the the swine flu e-learning course! Its totally based on the need and requirement of each council and for them to develop an e-learning course at their own means.

Then when another council might need the same thing but at a later time, the course could then be shared and repurposed by other authorities without reinventing the wheel! Makes perfect ‘efficiency’ sense doesn’t it? Now you might be thinking… OF COURSE IT IS, now why didn’t I think of that?!?

Watch this video to find out more about what Learning Pool can offer local authorities through their Dynamic Learning Environment (DLE)

Also don’t forget to check out Learning Pools Blog if you are interested in what Learning Pool is up to

Hope you’ve found this useful!

Liz xxx

Possibly Related Posts

• Attention London Boroughs!: I’m becoming a CELEB for a day onboard the HMS President!
• Special Feature: Liz meets Christine Shakespeare, Winner of Learning Pool’s overall Customer of the Year Award 2009
• Special Feature: Understanding Collaborative Learning with Hadley Beeman and Diving into the Learning Pool
• Learning Pool at ScotWeb2 2009 on Collaborative Learning and Saving Money
• Reshaping public services online by getting the basics right for local government websites

When did Basildon District Council start subscribing to Learning Pool?: January 2008

Here is the interview overview

So how did things start off for Basildon District Council…

Started off with attending lots of training, had lots of ideas and did lots of research in the first 10 months. Then in October, Basildon started planning their management development project and decided to integrate e-learning into their face-to-face training and thats when it all took off.

The decision to concentrate on policies…

After much thought and discussions and planning the strategies on how they wanted the courses to look like, Christine explained that Basildon District Council decided to focus on training for policies. This is due to the nature of policy training that could be very time consuming and not a particularly motivating subject.

So by end of October, Basildon had asked Learning Pool to come in and explained their requirements, giving them a target date for 12th of December the same year (Just 6 weeks)!  That included all 6 policies turned into e-learning, with evaluation and assessments!

So what was the key to Basildon District Council’s success?

According to Christine, the key to their success was Learning Pools collaborative approach, teamwork and professionalism was absolutely vital as they themselves did not have alot of resources on the project. They only had a subject matter expert who worked only 2 days in a week and Christine herself but she did not have time project time planned in for this project. So there were very real challenges here for Christine as well as Learning Pool, but they still hit the deadline by 12th of December and was ready to launch in January! Very impressive!!!

The output of success….

Basildon District Council launched their Phase 1 in January 2009 and have had 86 managers who are compliant and was extremely successful achieving 80% or over in every assessment in 6 policies.  Phase 2 of this project has just started in August where they have another 105 managers ready to enrol. Basildon now has 1,632 pieces of e-learning that was completed within 6 weeks.

Other projects with Learning Pool

In June 2009, Basildon District Council launched their ‘Information Security Awareness’ and ‘Equality and Diversity’ training which goes across the entire organization. They are also working on risk awareness which was launched in August, also going across the entire organization, department by department. Phase 2 of the ‘Management Development Programme’ will start in September. They are also hoping transfer their ‘Health and Safety’ training onto Learning Pool in September.

Christine’s experience with Learning Pool’s customer service…

I’ve always been impressed with the feedback I receive on this question from Learning Pool’s customers. Christine’s experience echos the positivity and satisfaction expressed by other customers when it comes to Learning Pool’s customer service. Christine described Learning Pool to be very responsive, very professional and very committed which ensures that they meet their targets and deliver to their own staff. They have also received positive feedback from their staff on the courses and believe it is an overall great experience.

Christine mentions some names…

I did cheekily ask Christine who from Learning Pool that has been particularly helpful to her and she did mention a few names from the top of her head…

1. Ben from IT (huge array of skills, great resource, very contactable and very responsive)
2. Deborah Lim (makes sure things happen on time and pulled together alot of resources in a short amount of time)
3. Mary McKenna and Paul McElvaney (the driving forces behind Learning Pool)
4. The whole of the admin team (whoever that picks up the phone is very responsive and come back to them very quickly)
5. Onya and Michele
6. Everybody!

Excellent customer service!

How does using Learning Pool help with cost cuttings?

By using Learning Pool as a blended approach, Basildon District Council has saved a huge amount of money on instructors, rooms, materials and refreshments. There is also a significant savings on time on the amount of time a person is on a training course and movement of people around the building. The amount of savings is not just down to money but also the amount of time people are away from their day job sitting in a training environment.  With e-learning, the whole process becomes more flexible and the integration allows people to learn at their own pace and in their own time.

Here’s a little bit more information

Christine Shakespeare is from Basildon District Council and is the recipient of Learning Pool’s overall Customer of the Year Award for 2009. Its not a surprise to me that Christine has won this award after doing some research on her achievements. Take a look at what Christine has accomplished.

• Using e-learning to communicate policy

Christine has successfully changed the way things are done at Basildon District Council by effectively by building a new learning experience for Basildon’s managers with 6 different modules in just 6 weeks.

• Basildon’s Management Devt Programme enhanced with e-learning

To find out more about Learning Pool, visit their website at http://www.learningpool.com and their blog at http://www.learningpool.com/blog where I am a featured blogger.

Also don’t forget to come and join Learning Pool’s Party this month. Here are the details. I’ll be there too, so don’t forget to say hello. I’ll be the one who looks like someone who’s never been on a boat party! LOL

Venue:    HMS President, Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0HJ 
Tel:         0207 583 1918
Date:      Wed 23 September, from 2pm till late (oh yes)
RSVP:     book your places here

Hope you’ve found this useful!

Liz xxx

Possibly Related Posts

• Attention London Boroughs!: I’m becoming a CELEB for a day onboard the HMS President!
• Special Feature: Understanding Collaborative Learning with Hadley Beeman and Diving into the Learning Pool
• Learning Pool at ScotWeb2 2009 on Collaborative Learning and Saving Money
• What’s a “Community Evangelist” I wonder…? Let’s find out! ;-)
• CELEB Event Coverage on board the HMS President, London