Ambition

The vision outlined in this strategy must be ambitious enough to allow the Local Authority to successfully compete for the attention of its citizens.

This vision has to be ambitious enough to begin to close the widening gap between the user experience the commercial market is providing online and that provided by Local Authorities. It is an attempt to steer a population towards a more prosperous, more social, more creative, more empowered and, in all senses of the word, more healthy future.

However, there will be failures along the way and we must be sensitive to the role ambition plays in determining whether an initiative is well thought out enough to be adopted or whether it has little chance of succeeding no matter how much further resource is invested.

Attracting talented staff

Local Authorities need to be environments where young, talented people can learn and exercise their skills.

There is a business axiom that states that any organisation is only as good as its people. In order for Local Authorities to stay energetic and innovative, they must compete with other areas of industry in order to attract the best, most skilled staff. Thus the organisation must as a minimum: allow and encourage such staff to use the technical resources and techniques they are skilled in; develop a culture in which new skills in communication, facilitation, creative thinking and group working are respected; and present an environment in which learning, which now often involves access to online video resources, is enabled and encouraged.

Leading the way

Benefits will accrue to regions that are at the forefront of the movement to reconcile online and offline behaviour.

Approaches such as the one outlined in this strategy are being implemented in cities and regions across the world, and while some are more advanced or more comprehensive in their approach than others, there is as yet no clear and successful precedent to draw on.

However, it is our belief that those places that manage to most comprehensively solve the social, cultural, technical and behavioural challenges that face them will gain profile and recognition nationally and globally, which will in turn present additional opportunities to accrue economic benefit and international standing.

The corollary is that regions which don’t, won’t.