Celebrating four years of the Local Digital Declaration

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Laying the foundations for the local public services of the future
In this blog post, I want to reflect back on the lessons learnt and achievements, such as bringing local authorities together to solve common challenges, and in particular how a group of local authorities and suppliers are cooperating together to deliver an open source solution.
For this edition of the Council Spotlight, we are highlighting Achieving for Children — a not-for-profit social enterprise owned by three councils.
Our digital planning software work is moving into a new phase of collaboration and delivery with Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) and software providers.
Today we’re pleased to announce the 9 council-led digital projects that will be awarded funding through Round 5 of the Local Digital Fund.
We’re pleased to announce the launch of a private beta of two new council-led digital planning products, funded by MHCLG’s Local Digital Fund. This is an exciting step towards 21st Century digital planning systems that use data and human-centred design to make applying for planning permission significantly simpler, faster and easier to understand.
Earlier this year, we launched a library of online training courses to support our local government colleagues to learn and develop their digital skills while working remotely. We want to share with you what we’ve learned so far and what we plan to do next. You can also find out how we’ve expanded the offer to provide even more training opportunities.
During the cyber security discovery last year, we identified five areas of opportunity for MHCLG to support councils in improving their cyber health. One of these areas was technical remediation: providing support to councils identified through the survey on mitigating malware and ransomware.
The Continuous Funding Model (CFM) is a more flexible way for funding digital projects through the Local Digital Fund. Find out how it’s been developed, how it works and who can apply.