Monthly Archive for September, 2010

Lloyds Bank and Hockey sticks

Published on September 28, 2010 in Local Government. 0 Comments

So, if the Government’s investment in Lloyds Bank is worth between £22 and £25bn, depending on the exit strategy and market price, is the clever CEO of a Local Authority going to plan their 25% savings over the next 4 fiscal years in a Hockey Stick shape…sort of 3% 4% 5% 8%? 

When it comes to year 4, will they be hoping that the contribution of Government Banking Share Sales will make so much of a difference that the Government will be claiming a better than anticipated recovery and thus ease off the planned cuts on Public Spending ahead of the forthcoming election?

If a Government in power wanted to counter an opposition party who might go into the next General Election with some form of “build the economy now that we are over the worst” theme, would the sale of Government Shares in Banks be a useful tool?

How likely is a scenario like this, therefore what are the canny planners going to do.  Late October and early November, we will see, for sure.

The citizen of the Big Society…

Published on September 6, 2010 in Central Government, Confirm v10 and Local Government. 1 Comment

The Citizen of the Big Society

  • Thinks that data should be freely available if any Government organisation paid for it once
  • Is willing to give their time to non-paid community work
  • Is willing to give to Charities of their personal choice
  • Wants to be able to work from Home, where this makes sense to them
  • Wants to be able to access all applications and data from all points at all times
  • Wants to blur the borders between Work and Personal life to suit them – this could be career enhancing (Taking personal time for extra work) or the other way around (keeping “in-touch” on Facebook/Twitter 24 hours a day)
  • Needs to be able to access services on-line 24 hours a day 365 days a year
  • Wants Configurable workflows for work so that they can tune the world to their way of thinking or their company’s way of thinking – it is no longer acceptable to be directed by rigid Codes of Practice
  • Wants to work with others in their peer group and local community to decide how Public services are provided
  • Sees their own opportunity to strengthen Society and local Communities, but worries that Public Sector spending cuts will undermine this potential evolution
  • Worries that the Mantra of “Do more with less” ultimately leads to Public Services being provided at a lower quality by charities … and yet feels that they do not want to be in the group that consume from Charities!
  • Worries like mad about the Society that their Children will step into as they leave full time education – Big Society or not, there needs to be paid jobs for all who want to work

And what does all that have to do with Confirm Software?  Version 10 will be launched at the end of October 2010 and will encompass many new features to start us off on the positive aspects of our journey into the “Big Society”.  Along with Confirm version 10 is a carefully crafted and unique array of products, solutions and services – Stratus, for example, bringing web maps to Citizen Service Portals created by Local Councils and tailored for local Communities; Spectrum – a cafeteria menu of tools to enable large Organisations to talk to large numbers of Customers and Citizens through the channels of their choice and many other cost saving software solutions beside: http://www.pbinsight.eu/uk/