About
Current status
I’ve retired (early) with my wife and we have relocated to Alsace, France. You can read about how we got there and what life is like on our ‘France’ blog
Previous work
I was a Product Manager for Unilink, helping to develop communications products for offenders that allow them to stay in touch with family and friends.
Prior to that I was a Product Owner for Placecube, and held a variety of digital, improvement and project roles in local government.
Work projects
- I was Product Owner for the Phase 2 of the DLUHC-funded Low Code Digital Waste Services project, which developed a reminders capability, a business account, a one-click deployment trading platform and a microsite design template
- I led on the migration of Dorset Council’s website from Contentis to Liferay using automated tools. You can view a video about the project
- I led a national discovery project into the use of chatbots and artificial intelligence, securing an £80,000 grant from MHCLG and working collaboratively with 12 other councils. It was evaluated as a ‘good model for other local authorities planning to undertake a collaborative project’
- I led on an in-house development of an intranet for Oxford City Council in Drupal. The project team I managed was awarded Team of the Year award at Oxford City Council staff awards in 2015
- I led on the redevelopment of Oxford City Council’s website in 2016 which saw satisfaction improve to be consistently in the top five nationally (as measured through GovMetric benchmarking) and a move of 26.3% of online transactions in 2015/16 to 43.2% in 2019/20 through digital service improvements
- I project managed the redevelopment of a derelict council building into a new Health Centre for Banbury
- I undertook a Best Value Review of Library Services in Oxfordshire which was identified as one of 10 nationally that had led to “significant change”
- I played a key role in the development of Oxfordshire County Council’s CPA improvement strategy. This includes writing the Council’s corporate improvement plan, devising a strategy to take the Council from a ‘fair’ CPA assessment in 2002 to an ‘excellent’ assessment in 2005
Other info
I first cut my teeth on web projects in the early 90’s when I decided I’d set up a website for the motor racing club that I was involved with. All frames and static html pages with a bit of javascript borrowed from other sites
I was a keen member of LocalGov Digital, a community of local government digital practitioners when in the sector, and was on its Steering Group for a number of years
You can view my portfolio site if you’re interested in seeing the kind of photographs I like to take