The LG CIO Council will meet three times a year to review where local government can support, or if necessary challenge, the broader Government CIO agenda and to discuss other issues and priorities relevant to local government transformation. The existence of this group and its meetings will also enable local government members of the main CIO Council to better represent local government issues across the country at the main CIO Council meetings.

Download Council minutes from the bottom of this page.

If there are issues you would like to see raised in this forum, please email details to: lgciocouncil@socitm.gov.uk

Members of the Local Government CIO Council are Socitm members drawn from the English regions and the different types of local authority. They are:

• Peter Bole, Head of ICT Commissioning, Kent CC
• Jos Creese*, Head of IT, Hampshire County Council 
• Rose Crozier, Head of IT, Belfast City Council
• Glyn Evans*, Assistant to the Chief Executive on Transformation, Birmingham City Council
• Helen Finnemore, Head of ICT & eGovernment, Teesdale DC
• Vic Freir, Head of ICT Services, Somerset CC
• Peter Gallon, Head of ICT, Northumberland CC
• Noelle Godfrey, Head of IT Strategy & Architecture, Cambridgeshire CC
• Chris Guest, Head of Technology & Improvement, Flintshire CC
• Steve Hopson, CIO, Cheshire CC         
• Jane Jack, Head of ICT Services, Warwick DC
• Mick Phythian, ICT Manager, Ryedale DC          
• Tim Rainey**, Assistant Chief Executive, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council           
• Nicola Ratcliffe, Information Services Manager, Kennet DC       
• Dylan Roberts, Head of ICT, Leeds City           
• Steve Sankey, Head of IT, Nottinghamshire CC
• Richard Steel, CIO, Newham LB        
• Angela Waite, Head of ICT & Central Services, Canterbury City

* member of the CIO Council
** member of the CTO Council

The inaugural meeting of the Local Government CIO Council was held on 1 April 2008. John Suffolk, the Government CIO attended the meeting and welcomed the establishment of the council. He said: 'I am delighted that the Local Government CIO Council has been established. As Government CIO, I am always struck by the many positive examples of transformational government at work in both local and central government. The key for me is how we better share these examples so that we can bring about systematic change for the whole public sector. I believe the Local Government CIO Council has an important role to play in this and look forward to working with them.'

Under the current CIO Council structure, the interests of the local government community have been served by three ‘representatives’. To date this has certainly given local government generally, and Socitm in particular, greater understanding of, and access to, many of the plans and decision making processes that form the work of the Council. However, as the work streams governed by the Council have developed in both number and complexity the current structures cannot really operate in a truly representational manner from the perspective of local government.  Through the establishment of the LG CIO Council it should be possible for

• Every national IT group working under the auspices of either the CIO Council or the CTO Council to have at least one Local Government IT representative involved, from active Socitm members.
• This group of representatives to meet before the National CIO Council to discuss the agenda and provide feedback from a local government perspective through the representatives local government on the CIO and CTO Councils

The specific objectives of the LG CIO Council are to:

• strengthen the credibility and influence of local government and Socitm in particular on national IT initiatives;
• help create a join-up between local and national initiatives, for example the way in which Socitm and the Cabinet Office consider developing the concept of an ‘IT profession’ for the public sector
• enable a small number of representatives at National Council level to genuinely represent a broad range of interests;
• provide a more effective conduit for discussion within the local government IT community around ideas and initiatives from the government CIO