Local councils across the country face significant challenges in delivering their digital services and projects effectively. Limited resources, legacy IT systems, technical debt and limited available in-house technical capability can all too often become barriers to councils being able to provide modern, digitally enabled public services.
At PUBLIC, we've designed an innovative solution tailored to support local councils in overcoming these challenges: ‘CTO as a Service’. This article explores how this service can help to develop sustainable capabilities, deliver tangible outcomes and help to accelerate digital change through our recent engagement with the London Borough of Hackney, offering insights and substantial potential benefits for other local councils.
PUBLIC’s ‘CTO as a Service’ offering provides local councils with expert technical oversight, governance, and project delivery support, with the ability to bring in additional specialist skills as and when needed to support in-house teams in delivering their priorities.
The service is designed to:
Like many local authorities, the London Borough of Hackney has been working to modernise its digital services and embrace the benefits of the cloud. The Council also faced significant challenges as a result of the pandemic and a cyberattack in 2020 that disrupted essential services.
The Council had been investing in its in-house teams and was looking for a partner who could augment their technology leadership, lead the delivery of key priority workstreams and also provide specialist expertise to support key areas of the cloud transformation.
Through the ‘CTO as a Service’ engagement, PUBLIC has supported the Council in driving important benefits that are helping to underpin the Council’s future digital success.
“PUBLIC’s ‘CTO as a Service’ team has made a real difference to our ability to move forward with important priorities in our programme. The service design has helped to develop an effective partnership and has provided us with the expertise we needed to meet key challenges. I have particularly valued the flexibility to respond to emerging needs and PUBLIC’s support for our work to develop important areas of our in-house technology team.” Rob Miller, Strategic Director, Customer & Workplace, Hackney Council
Key Achievements in Hackney include:
Our work with Hackney is just one example of how ‘CTO as a Service’ can enable a local council’s IT department. Other councils experiencing similar challenges can benefit from:
At PUBLIC, ‘CTO as a Service’ is designed to provide essential IT capabilities while empowering your in-house team, developing their skills until our direct involvement is no longer necessary. We commit to practical, actionable solutions that build internal capabilities and deliver substantial outcomes, not just reports. For local councils aiming to enhance their IT services, reduce risk, and achieve more with their resources, ‘CTO as a Service’ offers a pathway to success.
Discover how our ‘CTO as a Service’ offer can empower your council's IT operations. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can tailor them to meet your unique challenges and objectives. To find out more today, contact our Head of Product, Richard Llewellyn, at richard.llwellyn@public.io and learn more about our services and how we can tailor them to meet your unique challenges and objectives.
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