About the Council Spotlight

We want to shine a spotlight on stories of local government digital transformation and digital best practice.

The Council Spotlight blog post series provides councils with an opportunity to showcase their digital achievements and contributions to the Local Digital community.

On this page you can find out how your organisation can take part in a future issue.

Why take part?

If your council has completed a project or programme of work that you think will interest and inspire other councils, then Council Spotlight provides a platform for you to share it with the community.

The Local Digital team will work with you to help tell your story—whether it’s through a blog post, case study, video testimonial or audio recording—and publish it on our Medium publication.

We would love to hear how the Local Digital Declaration has impacted your work, such as how you have been inspired by the principles of the Declaration or how your council has met its Declaration commitments.

Who can take part?

The Council Spotlight is open to Local Digital Declaration signatories. Not a signatory? Find out what the Declaration is and how to sign.

Ideally, you should be at a stage where you can demonstrate clear outcomes and benefits, such as how your work will improve the lives of citizens and/or solve a shared local public service problem.

Before you apply, please note that:

  • while the Local Digital team will support you to create your Council Spotlight, input is required from your team to draft and review content
  • we are looking for original content, rather than content that has already been published elsewhere—if you have already published a great story that you would like us to help you promote, please email it to [email protected]

View recent issues

Video

Stockport’s Family Context tool

Stockport Council’s Family Context project was awarded funding through the Local Digital Fund to apply data and digital solutions to help ensure young people are safeguarded and fewer end up in care.

Read more
Blog post

Rushmoor Council’s digital election service

Find out how Rushmoor Borough Council took a user-centred approach to improving and digitalising their Elections service, leading to a more seamless and user-friendly experience for their customers.

Read more
Blog post

Connected Places, a community directory of services

Read the story of Connected Places — a co-designed directory of services that connects people to services, information and their local communities.

Read more
Video

Birmingham’s Guardian App

Learn how Birmingham City Council are developing a platform that enables their field workers to capture and access data to present casework in a consistent format.

Read more

Apply to the Council Spotlight

If you’re ready to celebrate your digital achievements, complete the application form below to take part in a future Council Spotlight.

We will use the information you provide to decide if your story is suitable for the Council Spotlight. Once we have reviewed your application, we will contact you by email to give feedback and outline the next steps.

The form should take no more than 15 minutes to fill out.

You can also email [email protected] if you have any questions or would like to discuss an idea with us.

We're interested to hear about the work you're doing to deliver more user-centred, cost-effective local public services. It can be a project or piece of work that you've completed, or that you're still working on.

Ideally, it should also show how you're working in line with the principles of the Local Digital Declaration:

  • redesigning services around the needs of the people using them
  • breaking away from inflexible and expensive technology that doesn’t join up effectively, in favour of modular common components and open data standards
  • designing safe, secure and useful ways of sharing information to build trust among partners and citizens
  • demonstrating digital leadership, creating the conditions for genuine organisational transformation
  • embedding an open culture that values, incentivises and expects working in the open, sharing plans and experience, working collaboratively with other organisations, and reusing good practice.
  • Word count guide: 250 words

    What impact do you hope your work will have on residents, staff within your council, or other councils?

    Word count guide: 250 words

    Tell us why you think your story is a good fit for the Council Spotlight - what makes it exciting, interesting or inspiring for other councils?

    Word count guide: 250 words