# Fixing the foundations and readying for reorganisation – five things we learnt at Socitm President’s Conference > Source: > Published: 2026-06-19 01:03:00+00:00 ##### The annual gathering of local public service technology professionals featured a great deal of discussion concerning the twin spectres of AI and LGR. *PublicTechnology* went along to find out more. Socitm, the society for innovation, technology and modernisation for those working in local public services, held its first conference in March 1986, soon after its formation 40 years ago. The [society’s](https://socitm.net/about/) annual two-day President’s Conference now provides public sector technology leaders, experts and suppliers with a platform to discuss the issues affecting its members. This year’s conference, held in west London on 9 and 10 June, heard even more discussion of LGR – local government reorganisation – than AI, artificial intelligence, although both were considered at length. Other topics included technology foundations, shared security services, keeping older people online and how the technology sector has changed in the last four decades. ## LGR-affected councils are upgrading for their successors By April 2028, the government plans to replace more than 200 county and lower-tier district, borough and city authorities in England with a much smaller number of unitaries. It has decided how it will reorganise six areas but has yet to do so for a further 16, giving staff in many affected authorities less than two years to work out how to split and merge technology, services and organisations. Some are doing so by upgrading now to give their successor authorities a better start in life. Essex County Council already knows that, along with its lower-tier councils and neighbouring unitaries Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, it needs to hand over to five new unitaries on 1 April 2028. As by far the largest authority currently in the area, Essex is replacing most of its 8,000 laptops and 700 desktop computers before then, with the aim that the five successor councils will not need to replace these for two years after their start date. Emma Toublic, Essex’s assistant director for operations and platform, told a session at the conference that providing successor authorities with stable technology foundations including new devices will make reorganisation easier, such as by allowing staff to use AI tools. “If you give someone a really basic computer, they aren’t going to be able to take advantage of these technologies,” she said. Overall, LGR would be difficult but also presented “a great opportunity to us to reset things”. South Staffordshire District Council does not even know which neighbours it will be merging with at present, but is nevertheless about to go live with a new cloud-based finance system to improve its readiness. Andy Hoare, the council’s assistant director of business transformation and digital technology, said the council’s existing on-premises finance system has had its last update from the current supplier. “I wouldn’t fancy trying to migrate an unsupported finance system into LGR,” he told a session. “Doing nothing is not a risk mitigation.” Other local authorities are looking at changing practices. Simon Fletcher, chief executive of Lichfield District Council, also in Staffordshire, told a panel session that councils could improve LGR readiness by turning their websites into their definitive source of information then using AI to repurpose their contents for other digital channels. “It shouldn’t just be a publishing channel, it should be a knowledge base for the whole council,” he said. There were gloomier views. Nathan Pierce, director of Essex Digital Service at Essex County Council, said that LGR may enable some change but added that it “doesn’t solve these problems, it changes the shape of these problems”. He said that rather than LGR being the equivalent of building on a greenfield site, it is more like trying to complete the renovation of an old château in France to a short deadline – and all without being able to speak French. ## AI may change public services in unexpected ways The conference started with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s director of AI Tom Smith outlining the services that the department provides and is building for England’s local authorities, including Local Transcribe, which the ministry is piloting with 500 officers at the moment. While using AI for transcription could offer big efficiency gains, it is not without its problems; Oliver Bruff, a researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute, told another session that the organisation’s research has found that some social workers just cut and paste AI transcriptions while others spend a long time on checking. Technology is also changing how people find and produce material, something the public sector needs to consider. Elizabeth Arnott, a senior web designer and developer for Kirklees Council, said that organisations need to learn how to write for AI summarisation rather than just search engine optimisation as at present. Rosie Scott, a university student and data ambassador for Newham Council, discussed how she uses AI tools including Google’s Gemini to help her write. “Everything I write on LinkedIn is my own words, but I use Gemini to make it a little bit more professional and easier to understand and get rid of all the filler words,” she said. ## Local authorities need to fix the foundations Aside from LGR and AI, Socitm’s conference heard from speakers warning that new initiatives may fail unless local authorities have strong technological foundations and think about what they are trying to achieve. “If you don’t have the right foundations with the technology right and the data standards right, no matter what shiny object you bring in to sit on top of it, it is not going to give you the answers,” Rehana Ramesh, Hackney Council’s director of ICT, digital and customer services said. Jennifer Schooling, professor of digital innovation and smart places at Anglia Ruskin University, said her research suggests that smart city initiatives that focus on the technology tended to fall flat. “The key thing is to put front and centre the outcomes you are trying to achieve,” she told a panel session, then consider what technological tools to use. ## Wales is doing well from sharing security Local public service organisations in Wales are getting the benefits of round-the-clock security through a Welsh Government-funded shared service, something they would struggle to do individually, one session heard. Ryan James, chief information security officer for Merthyr Tydfil Council, said that if his council had tried to set up an equivalent to the CymruSOC outsourced service from Socura, “we would still be there now trying to get it work”. CymruSOC, the security operations centre for Welsh local public services, has dealt with more than 200,000 incidents since going live in May 2024 with nearly half of incidents taking place outside normal business hours. Merthyr Tydfil is the contracting authority for the service, which the Welsh Government leads and funds for all local authorities and fire and rescue services across the country. ## The changing face of Socitm Socitm is now led by women, with Barnet Council’s programme director for strategy, culture and sustainability Yogita Popat taking over the presidency from Norfolk County Council’s head of IT Kurt Frary at the conference, while Nadira Hussain continues to serve as chief executive and Sam Smith is leading the Socitm Institute. As Hussain told a session on the society’s 40th anniversary, it was not always like this. “Sad to say, Socitm started as quite a cliquey, closed, very male-dominated environment,” she said, adding of her first event in the late 1990s: “I walked into the room and didn’t see many people that looked like me.” Hussain added that she has been on a mission to ensure the society is “diverse, inclusive and reflective of the people that we serve”. *SA Mathieson edits Socitm’s In Our View magazine*