Removing the blinkers in local government

How digital leadership can get council functions finally working together

With Jack McGarrigle, assistant director, digital applications and product, Islington Council

“What I’ve found in local government is that people tend to be blinkered,” Jack says. “Lots of service areas have been doing the same process for many years, with deeply embedded systems.” The issue isn’t resistance to improvement; it's that change threatens long-standing patterns of work. Behaviour and mindset, rather than infrastructure, often become the true barriers.

Jack comes from 26 years working in central government, including heading up IT applications and shared services for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Seven years ago, he made the move into local government, bringing his expertise in digital development and a heightened sense of the importance of cross-functional collaboration.

In this conversation we discuss the role of digital leaders in bringing people and functions together, spurring changes in behaviour and joining up projects with the resident view always at the centre. Sometimes, as Jack highlights, it’s the people element of digital transformation that demands the greatest focus.

Bringing people with you

“Successful transformation requires giving staff a concrete sense of what’s possible, not through theoretical presentations but through real pilots, live demonstrations and collaborative service design”, he continued. “And crucially, shifting conversations away from individual systems and towards end-to-end journeys.”

The real trick in transformation lies not in the technology itself, but in how it connects to the lived reality of council services. Digital tools alone won’t improve outcomes unless councils rethink the processes underpinning them; sometimes these need to be stripped right back. So, how should digital leaders approach this?

Thinking like residents

One theme Jack returns to repeatedly is the importance of holistic thinking. Residents do not experience the council as a collection of siloed departments, they simply want coherent, seamless journeys.

“Look across the whole piece,” he explains, “and think about joining up services end-to-end by linking the data together.” When councils design from the resident’s perspective, rather than the organisational chart, bottlenecks and inconsistencies become far easier to spot.

A recent example illustrates the point. Islington examined how residents report antisocial behaviour. They discovered more than 50 different variations of the reporting journey. Through service redesign, the process was simplified, integrated with residents’ My Islington accounts and paired with improved triaging for faster response. The result? A clearer user journey, better visibility for residents alongside other council services, and more effective citizen outcomes thanks to disturbances now being actioned much quicker.

These are exactly the kinds of process-level improvements that build financial resilience, not necessarily through dramatic cost savings, but by reducing friction, improving staff efficiency and boosting resident satisfaction. Councils shouldn’t be afraid of breaking up current processes and redesigning them by asking the questions: what is the quickest and most effective way of the user reaching their desired outcome? And how can technology accelerate this?

LGR: technically achievable, culturally challenging

As councils explore deeper collaboration and, in some regions, formal reorganisation, Jack sees both promise and complexity.

On the infrastructure side, shared networks and platforms are well within reach, something he knows from running a shared service across Islington, Camden and Haringey. “From an infrastructure point of view, it is very doable,” he says, though he emphasises the importance of cyber security in any consolidated environment.

Applications, however, are another story. Systems that have been in place for years or decades carry with them tailored processes, local workarounds and contractual commitments. The challenge isn’t the technology itself but dismantling embedded practices and reconciling very different operational cultures. Still, Jack believes the obstacles are far from insurmountable, they are just demanding of time, patience and a willingness to challenge assumptions.

For those councils now planning the unification of different systems as part of local government reorganisation, a first step will be an audit of all infrastructure, applications and the processes that sit behind them to understand exactly where the most attention is required and how to go about changing behaviours.

The role of digital teams in bringing services together

Jack is candid: operational collaboration across services, such as housing and adult social care, remains sporadic. “If I’m brutally honest, I don’t see it anywhere near where it should be,” he admits. Regulatory responsibilities often dominate attention, leaving little room for the cross-functional conversations that would unlock true service integration.

Digital teams, however, can act as facilitators. By viewing processes through a wider organisational lens, they have a rare viewpoint where they can spot opportunities for joined-up outcomes. Imagine someone moving into the borough: in theory, a council should be able to link tax records, benefits, housing needs and family circumstances to proactively guide the resident. It's possible, but not yet common. The missing ingredient is holistic, data-driven thinking, and this is why the growth of digital leadership in local authorities is so critical; they are the people that can bring it all together.

The rise of DDaT leaders

Jack has seen first-hand the benefits of strong Digital Date and Technology (DDaT) capability in central government, where coherent data strategies and shared digital standards are more mature. Local government, he says, is catching up, but unevenly.

Some councils now have clear data leadership and well-structured data strategies. Others rely on scattered pockets of expertise with no unifying framework. Given that “data underpins everything we’re doing,” Jack argues that having a visible data lead and a clearly defined approach to data management is becoming non-negotiable.

Suppliers as partners

Drawing on his central government experience, Jack sees enormous value in supplier partnerships, provided they are collaborative, transparent and agile.

Local authorities simply do not have the in-house capacity to replicate the depth of expertise suppliers bring around regulatory requirements, application architecture and long-term support. “The best value comes when we are working with our suppliers as an extension of our workforce,” Jack says. With technology moving faster than ever, councils need suppliers that iterate, roadmap and respond at pace.

The key takeaways here are the importance of working across council functions, taking a holistic view, challenging established ways of working, taking on the perspective of the user / resident when designing services, and leaning into digital leadership and the value of technology partners. The outcomes? Seamless resident journeys, proactive service deliver and resilient, data-driven organisations.

Where can these lessons apply in your own organisation?