Adam Joesbury
January 10, 2020
Comment from Brent Stewart, Head of Development at Arcus Global
“When it comes to local government, it seems that open data and open standards will take more prominence. A few authorities across the UK have already put this in motion, such as the Greater London Authority (GLA), where the ambition is to create a ‘live hub’ of planning and development information, accessible to all Londoners.
Even Ordnance Survey began trials earlier this year like adding OS Open Greenspace to Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. It recently added this dataset to test how the data is received, gathering feedback from users who access it via the Living Atlas. In simpler terms, all of this is part of making OS’s Master Map freely available and in 2020 we’ll see plenty of innovation and businesses using geospatial data thanks to moves like this. With the Government Digital Service (GDS) publishing materials encouraging more organisations to use and contribute to open standards, this will likely be the case next year.
All of this ties into more intelligent use of data – something that is becoming crucial to improving services and implementing targeted help for citizens. Rather than reacting to problems in their local areas, councils will be more proactive in their service delivery. With integrated services on the rise and legislature performing less of a ‘push’ and more of a ‘shove’ towards the cloud, this might not be so much of a trend but more of an inevitability. I believe a rise in the use of AI in automating many public services will play a big part in this. Of course, integration of front and back-office data (end-to-end service transformation) is something I look forward to immensely, with services like Gov.uk Notify and Gov.uk Pay looking to be in even wider use in 2020.”
About Arcus Global
Arcus Global, formed in 2009 and based in Cambridge UK, is a market leading GovTech cloud company, delivering mission critical technology solutions that enable local authorities and other public sector organisations to transform their service delivery to citizens.
The Software as a Service division of Arcus has developed a platform based suite of Applications for Local Government. Addressing the challenge of legacy technology in Citizen Digital interaction, Planning, Building Control, Licensing, Environmental Health. Arcus has grown to over 30 customers including Folkestone & Hythe District Council, Eastleigh Borough Council and the London Borough of Southwark.
The Cloud Infrastructure Division of Arcus provides Consultancy, Managed Services and Cloud Storage to a large number of Public Sector bodies across Central Government, Local Government, the NHS and the Education sector.
Contact
Kate Warboys, Marketing Manager at Arcus Global
