Wednesday, 25 March, 2026

Really nice in depth case study looking at how Milton Keynes City Council transformed their planning services, using Arcus Global’s tech:

Legacy back-office systems are holding many planning departments back—slowing processes, frustrating staff, and limiting the ability to deliver efficient, modern services for our communities. Replacing them is no small task; for most councils, it feels like a mountain to climb. But it can be done. This case study shows how Milton Keynes City Council took on the challenge, navigated the risks, and is transforming its planning service with a new cloud-based platform. It is proof that while digital transformation is hard, it is not impossible.

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Tuesday, 24 March, 2026

Richard Pope – Unified inboxes, streams and augmentation:

The idea of a unified inbox for government is not a new one. Many governments around the world have developed one, as have public organisations like the National Health Service in England, which has a unified inbox for patients. Many commercial services, like banks, have them too.

Rather than seeing unified inboxes as a desirable end state, I argue that we should see them as a staging post to something else and a tool to further unbundle services. And that, long-term, we will come to see them as representing a missed opportunity.

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Friday, 20 March, 2026

Thursday, 19 March, 2026

Tuesday, 17 March, 2026

New resource added to the digital LGR playbook by the team – Cyber readiness.

Ensuring a new unitary council can protect data, detect threats, maintain secure access, and keep critical services running from day one.

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Monday, 16 March, 2026

Terence Eden – How Can Governments Pay Open Source Maintainers?:

When I worked for the UK Government I was once asked if we could find a way to pay for all the Open Source Software we were using. It is a surprisingly hard problem and I want to talk about some of the issues we faced.

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I don’t entirely understand this, but it sure is interesting:

With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started. Built on WordPress Playground, my.WordPress.net takes the same technology that powers instant WordPress demos and turns it into something permanent and personal. This isn’t a temporary environment meant to be discarded. It’s a WordPress that stays with you.

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Friday, 13 March, 2026

Good news – New pilot to help councils identify and support residents at risk to vulnerability earlier:

Local Digital is pleased to share that the Scalable Approach to Vulnerability via Interoperability (SAVVI) and Open Referral UK (ORUK) data standards are taking an important step forward.

The government is investing £1.1 million to test the adoption of these 2 leading data standards in real service environments. The findings will help shape future scaling across England.

Pilots with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council will help both areas identify and support vulnerable people earlier, more effectively and more consistently.

These pilots mark a major step toward a future where councils can work proactively, not reactively, using data to identify early signs of people at risk to vulnerability and connect them to the right support before issues become more serious.

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Thursday, 12 March, 2026

Steph Tucker – An observation: many government content style guides exist, but they’re rarely used in practice (LinkedIn warning):

A much better approach is to make content patterns and standards an active team practice. You can do this by running regular sessions where you look at real pages and talk about links, words you use, buttons, components – the small stuff.

Consistency is what creates a good user experience. When patterns and language are predictable, users learn how a service works and move through it with confidence.

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