We think that open data standards are the key to unlocking greater local government collaboration, leading to an ecosystem of services where council, third sector and commercial, all work together.

So if this is true, what’s stopping us and how do we get on with it?

At mySociety we havebeen fans of open standards for some time especially Open311 standard for reporting non-emergency local issues online via our own FixMyStreet.com service. Use of these open standards mean that issues can be submitted directly into a local authority’s system, and, just as importantly, report back when they have been resolved, via any compatible service.

If you are responsible for setting strategy for open data and digital standards in a local authority, then please join us for a half-day workshop in London on Tuesday 19th April (the day before the Digital Government conference in London).

We’d love to hear from you about your use of open standards in local government, to share experiences on how this can power new service development and identify opportunities to extend the take up of open standards.

We’ll be discussing;

• What are the barriers to greater adoption of open standards?

• Why open standards lead to better outcomes

• How open standards are a building block for local government as a platform

• Who should be involved and how we get them to participate?

We'll have attendees from councils all over the UK including Oxfordshire, Lewisham, Bristol, Greenwich and Stevenage; along with contributions from Phil Rumens of LocalGovDigital and Tom Symons of Nesta, roundtable discussions on open standards, case studies on open standards in practice, including Open311, and a spot of lunch as well.

If you or a colleague would like to attend, or you know people in other councils who are interested in making better use of open standards, then we’ve got a ticket ready for you.

Space is a little limited so invites are prioritised for local authority employees with responsibility for digital, data or open standards.