News Story

Intelligent Leadership – APPG on Smart Cities

Alan Fletcher, Wednesday 27 Jun 2018

The UK Government All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smart Cities last night published its initial report on how government strategy can unlock the potential of smart cities in the UK.

KMi’s Alan Fletcher has been a member of the APPG for a number of years and was engaged in the process of creating the report with other members through a series of round table discussions, chaired by the APPG lead, Iain Stewart MP.

The report, launched at the House of Commons, recognizes the complexity of the smart city landscape and the need for contextual awareness in all cities. It draws upon the experience gained through projects such as MK:Smart in Milton Keynes, cityVerve in Manchester, Bristol is Open and others across the UK and Europe. Combined with specialist knowledge from industry in tech, accounting, local government, construction planning and academia, the APPG report makes some key recommendations for realizing the potential of smart cities:

Ministerial Responsibility to deliver interoperability; a central source of information and knowledge; governance to create standards in procurement that allow for agility; enhanced digital capacity with strong local leadership; ROI models that recognize interoperability; the facilitation of smart exports.

These recommendations are all explored in more detail in the report, which is available from the APPG