LocalGov Drupal - open collaboration between UK Councils - Finn Lewis
Channel: Drupalcamp London
Date: 2020-03-14

Slides
You should be able to access the slides here: 
https://bit.ly/localgovdrupal

Presenters: 
Finn Lewis, Agile Collective (https://www.drupal.org/u/finnlewis)
Will Callaghan, London Borough Croydon (https://twitter.com/willguv) 
John Waterworth, DXW Digital 

Session details
There are 408 councils across the UK who are spending £millions of taxpayers money on publishing platforms and regularly re-inventing the wheel.

We are working with a group of currently four councils that have decided to stop doing this and actively work together on a shared Drupal codebase. Rather than attempting to create a one-size-fits-all solution, we are understanding the needs of our various users and creating Drupal components that can be mixed and matched to suit. 

Our group is growing quickly. We were funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to explore other councils’ needs and scale the project. As part of the current work we are in active conversations with 11 UK councils and we’re receiving expressions of interest at a rate of about 2 per week.

Through working in the open and active collaboration, all councils can:

save time,
save money,
make things better for the end user.
Our session will cover: 
The story so far
Motivations to share
Motivations to work in the open
Resistance: Why isn’t it already happening?
How we’re changing things
Next steps
How to get involved
Background reading: 
https://croydon.digital/2019/07/15/croydon-council-is-sharing-a-publishing-platform-with-brighton-hove/
https://croydon.digital/2020/01/22/council-code-sharing-project-is-up-and-running/