THE Devon county councillor for the Holsworthy ward recently attended a conference held by Microsoft after the county council was listed in the ‘Top 100 Digital Leaders UK List’ for 2018.

Cllr Barry Parsons, cabinet member at Devon County Council with responsibilities for organisational change and digital transformation, attended the conference with Sarah Elliott, IT and adoption change manager.

Sarah is an officer at Devon County Council with responsibility for integrating Microsoft methods across a range of public services for which the council has a remit. Sarah wants to explore new ways of working and using technology to support the many diverse roles in their organisation. Her key role is to engage with staff to understand their business outcomes and give guidance on how technology can help to support these.

Cllr Parsons and Sarah were invited by Microsoft to present at the recent national conference in London, ‘Microsoft Fully Decoded’.

The county council has first hand experience of working directly with Microsoft to improve business practices and changing much of its ways of working to suit modern-day needs and to focus on ‘what matter’ for the communities across Devon.

The event was held over two days and included top level key note speeches, giving information and practical advice needed to help grow business in the changing world of digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

The event saw around 12,000 people attend. The focus over the two days was to drive forward aspects of collaboration and innovation and seeking solutions to significant disruption of normal work practices.

Devon County was highly praised for the input delivered by both Cllr Parsons and Sarah and there was a real recognition of a local authority with not only a huge appetite for cultural change, but, the will to achieve it in the best possible way.