LocalGovCamp 2017 is coming

We’re now deep into organising this year’s LocalGovCamp which is being held over 2 days on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th of September at Bristol City Hall.

LocalGovCamp is a free event organised by volunteers who work in or around local government for people who care about making better public services. Often the focus of the event is around digital but that doesn’t mean technology, social media or marketing. Everyone is welcome from councillors and senior leaders, to council or voluntary sector staff or to individuals who just want to help. This mix of people is one of the things that makes the event so interesting for me.

Friday fringe

The Friday fringe day is a bit more structured and is based around the Local Government Digital Service Standard. You’ll be able to choose from a number of practical workshops where experts from other councils, Government Digital Service, Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Justice, Public Service Transformation Academy and some private sector organisations are there to share their knowledge.

More will be shared on the LocalGov Digital website soon but I know there are sessions on assisted digital and digital inclusion, open data, social care and getting into the detail of how to technically work with GOV.UK Verify.

Saturday - unconference day

The Saturday is an “unconference” which means no-one knows the agenda until the day - it’s set by the people that turn up (although feel free to use LocalGovCamp Slack to discuss your pitch ideas). It might sound scary but in my experience it works well. The sessions are not about being spoken at with a PowerPoint background for 40 minutes with a question and answer section at the end. It’s about the group of people in the room discussing or working through a topic or question that someone has always wondered about. If the discussion isn’t working for you then speak up or move on to another room to see what’s going on in there.

You can see what was talked about in previous years on the LocalGov Digital website, see the session grid and photos on Flickr.

Get signed up

It’s free to attend both days and you can choose which days you’d like to attend. Following UKGovCamp’s lead we’re trialing a lottery as the way to get tickets so it’s not about who can sign up for a ticket quickest.

To join the lottery you need to sign up by 9th June. Do it!!