The big idea
LocalGov Drupal Product Lead, Will Callaghan, worked at the Government Digital Service (GDS) around the time GOV.UK was launched. He was part of the 'Whitehall' team that moved all the central government departments, such as the Home Office and Number 10, to GOV.UK.
As part of that work, Product Manager Neil Williams was interested in finding the departments' common needs. The team built a platform that they could all use and are still using today.
Will wondered whether this could also be done for local government. Could a platform of shared components be created that all UK councils could use? At the time GDS was focused on central government needs, so the idea didn't develop further.
Separately, Drupal developer and agency owner, Alick Mighall, was thinking about councils sharing code. In this blog post Alick recalls mowing grass for another council. He thought that if one council could mow another's grass, surely they could build their website, too.
These twin ideas came together in 2018 at Brighton & Hove City Council. Will was Product Manager for the new Drupal 8 council website, and Alick's company was building it. Alick emailed Will and his boss, Ali Brady, suggesting that the code be open sourced so other councils could use it.
As Alick points out in his blog, there's a big difference between a website built at speed for a specific council and one that could be used by many. But the idea stuck, and the team pushed forward.
Two councils collaborating
Will left Brighton & Hove to work with Croydon Council. The council needed a website, and Will suggested that Brighton & Hove technology could be reused.
The website Product Manager, Tom Steel, and his team were keen on the idea. Neil Williams, now the council's Chief Digital Officer, backed it. He knew the territory, having already created the shared publishing platform for central government departments at GOV.UK.
The next step was to agree on how Brighton & Hove and Croydon would work together. Senior officers in Croydon and Brighton met and decided that Croydon would use the code. In return, they would share anything new that they built.
Central government backing
Our story would have probably stopped there if it had not been for the Local Digital Declaration.
The Declaration, and the accompanying Local Digital Fund, allowed the team to grow their ambitions. From January 2020 to October 2021 Will Callaghan and the Croydon team applied for and won Discovery, Alpha and Beta funding.
The Discovery allowed us to properly understand whether councils wanted to collaborate on a Drupal publishing platform (yes, they did).
In Alpha, we were able to refactor all of the code so it was suitably generic for any council to pick up and use. We were also able to start work on governance, understanding how decisions could be made across a group of councils and who would make them.
The Beta phase, where we moved our lead council to Cumbria, allowed us to scale and help more councils. We're still growing today.
We launched new Microsites functionality. Users can now spin up small sites with a few clicks, covering all sorts of needs from council-run theatres to recycling campaigns. They can brand them how they like too.
We understand how new features are built, through creating a working group where interested councils can chip in and work together.
The councils decide on their aims, decide when they're going to meet and who will be involved, and then get on with it. It sounds straightforward, and that's because it's designed to be. As the GOV.UK motto goes, we've done the hard work to make it simple for our users.
Our transition
We've also completed our transition to a legal entity, which will support and develop LocaGov Drupal.
We are now Open Digital Cooperative, a not-for-profit multistakeholder co-op.
We charge a small subscription fee to councils and suppliers to ensure our financial sustainability.
Our future
We've done so much, and there's a lot we still want to do for our councils and their citizens. Council colleagues tell us working on LocalGov Drupal is among the best things they've ever done.
The work we’ve done so far and the feedback we’ve received have given us confidence in the product and the wider concept, and we hope to emulate our work with councils in other public services and sectors.
I couldn't really praise it enough, both from a project manager point of view, but also from a public sector democracy point of view, and from a digital point of view too it's a really, really good thing.
Thank you!
We've been overwhelmed by the support LocalGov Drupal has received down the years. See Our People for a long list of people and organisations we'd like to thank.
If you would like to find out more or have any questions just drop us a line at hello@localgovdrupal.org. We are always happy to chat about LocalGov Drupal, provide a demo of the platform, or show how councils are using it.