About the Local Digital Declaration

What is the Declaration?

The Local Digital Declaration is a shared ambition for the future of local public services.

It was written in 2018 by a collective of 45 local authorities, sector bodies and government departments, and outlines our goals and commitments. Any public sector and non-profit organisation that is working to improve local services is invited to join the movement by signing the Declaration, and it has been signed by more than 300 local authorities and supporting organisations since it launched.

You can read the full Declaration on our website or download the Local Digital Declaration as a PDF.

Watch the below video for a brief overview of the key principles of the Declaration and some of the work it has achieved to date.

Read a transcript of the ‘About the Local Digital Declaration’ video

What are we signing up to?

By signing the Local Digital Declaration, your organisation is joining a growing community of over 300 local authorities, sector bodies and government departments who are committed to the shared vision of the Declaration.

To make sure real changes start to happen in our practice, culture and outcomes, each organisation that signs is asked to commit to doing a project in the next year. The project must be in line with the Declaration principles, which are to:

  • redesign our services around the needs of the people using them
  • break our dependence on inflexible and expensive technology that doesn’t join up effectively, in favour of modular common components and open data standards
  • design safe, secure and useful ways of sharing information to build trust among our partners and citizens
  • demonstrate digital leadership, creating the conditions for genuine organisational transformation
  • embed an open culture that values, incentivises and expects working in the open wherever we can, sharing our plans and experience, working collaboratively with other organisations, and reusing good practice.

To help your organisation to fulfil its commitments, Declaration signatories are given the opportunity to apply for funding on a collaborative project(s) through the Local Digital Fund.

You will also get momentum and energy from the rest of Local Digital community and the dedicated Local Digital team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), to support you in your digital transformation journey. DLUHC have funded Local Digital to support and bring together the community around the Declaration in their collective mission.

Who can sign the Declaration?

Signing up to the Local Digital Declaration is currently only open to public sector and non-profit organisations in the UK.

You will need two people from your organisation to be involved in signing the Declaration:

  1. Someone to lead on the sign-up process – this person will be responsible for completing the form and for the project day-to-day, not the formal signatory.
  2. A senior approver – this should be a senior person with the authority to sign the Declaration on behalf of their organisation, for example, a CEO or political leader.

Suppliers can get involved with the Tender Slack channel, the trial community to test better buyer-seller communication.

How do I sign?

To sign the Local Digital Declaration:

Sign the Declaration