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The approach
To carry out the maturity analysis GDS used the five principles of the UK Department for Levelling
Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) Local Digital Declaration, namely:
• Evidence of being user centred
• Evidence of using digital standards
• Evidence of best practice for data sharing
• Evidence of strong digital leadership
• Evidence of working in the open
GDS only used publicly available data that could be obtained for the local authorities. This was
then leveraged to score the organizations on a set of metrics based on the principles.
The metrics that GDS used looked at their user research practices, adoption of agile and cloud-
first approaches, use of open-source code and prioritising SMEs in their procurement. It also
covered published information and evidence of data sharing, digital strategies and demonstrating
leadership, either politically with dedicated portfolios or corporately with a specific directorate. To
look at the working collaboration across local authorities and the communication about the work
they are doing between local governments and their stakeholders.
As GDS conducted this with usually publicly available information, rather than a deep dive into
practices, this analysis did not take into account the quality of any work taking place but instead
just that these principles were being used or considered.
The results
Once GDS had completed the analysis they observed that the strengths across local government
were:
• Working together, including nationwide collaboration.
• Having an up-to-date digital strategy setting out the digital aims of the authority.
Where organizations were the weakest included:
• Being able to demonstrate good visible leadership for digital transformation.
• Communicating the work, they are doing and how they achieve it.
• Having digital, data and technology (DDaT) roles embedded within the organization to allow
digital transformation.
Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023 19
