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ABOUT KNOWLEDGE HUBKnowledge Hub boasts a proud heritage within public sector digital collaboration. Originated anddeveloped for local government by local government, the Knowledge Hub and its predecessorCommunities of Practice have been enabling public service practitioners to share knowledge onlinesince 2006.

Since January 2016, Knowledge Hub has been an independent small company maintaining theoriginal ethos of a free to use platform for public service professionals to share knowledge,experiences and learning, while also developing a commercial model that seeks to share incomegenerated through private sector advertising with subscribing organisations.

WHY CHOOSE KNOWLEDGE HUB?

Knowledge Hub is the place where you can connect, collaborate and communicate with membersjust like you across public service. Knowledge Hub provides its digital collaboration tools to a broadaudience of over 500 public sector organisations within the UK and internationally. It is usedextensively in central and local government, health, education, housing, police and fire services.

The growing Knowledge Hub community consists of over 150,000 public service professionals andtheir partners who use Knowledge Hub to exchange ideas and solutions and share good practiceand innovation. Members need no longer reinvent the wheel, but can gain efficient, effective andreliable advice from their peers in a secure environment.

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With the year on year reduction in public sectorspending unlikely to change any time soon, the abilityto share knowledge, source rapid answers and toremove duplication is increasingly important ifshrinking resources are to be focused on deliveringfront-line services.

With a fast-growing community of over 160,000professionals, spanning every corner of the publicsector, Knowledge Hub is helping to remove traditional,organisational and geographical boundaries andmaking it easier to deliver results through collaboration.International working groups, cross-governmentcommunities of practice, time-limited project groupsand leadership development cohorts are just someexamples of how the platform’s community is exploitingits feature-rich digital tool-set.

Melissa Whittle, Engagement Co-ordinator at GeoPlace,describing the trusted online community they havebuilt for local authority members to share best practiceadvice on addressing and street data said: “KnowledgeHub is about connecting and sharing in order toimprove our knowledge and help us in our day to daywork. It’s improved our communications 100% andimproved our relationships with our community.”

The connected intelligence of the virtual communityis where the strength lays. This is attractive toorganisations who can tap into a wider knowledgepool and crowd-source answers from subject matterexperts, instead of expensive consultants and who

can reduce travel expenses by supplementing physicalmeetings with online activities. And there are benefitsto the individual too, who can further theirprofessional development through connecting withtheir peers, wherever they may be based, to shareexperiences and to give and get help.

“WITH A FAST-GROWING COMMUNITYOF OVER 160,000 PROFESSIONALS,SPANNING EVERY CORNER OF THE

PUBLIC SECTOR, KNOWLEDGE HUB ISHELPING TO REMOVE TRADITIONAL,

ORGANISATIONAL AND GEOGRAPHICALBOUNDARIES AND MAKING IT EASIER

TO DELIVER RESULTS THROUGHCOLLABORATION.”

Barrie Minney, Senior Enforcement Agent at Brighton& Hove City Council, reveals how the Local AuthorityCivil Enforcement Forum (LACEF) has saved moneythrough sharing advice and best practice on localauthority debt collection. “The group regularly helpsa lot of us to learn new ways of working. Using thelatest debt collection technique is one example. Beingspread across the country and knowing what workingpractices are happening elsewhere allows us toimprove how we do things”, he says.

Originated in the UK, Knowledge Hub now extends to80 countries as the appetite to share knowledge andunderstand different approaches to common issues,grows. One such example is UDiTE, who use theplatform to support the associations work in promotingrelations between the professional associations of ChiefExecutives and Municipal Clerks representing Europeanlocal authorities, to develop exchanges of information,to share professional experiences, contribute to theenhancement of the role and functions of localauthorities and to contribute to democracy and theEuropean Union.

Jason Fahy, CEO of KnowledgeHub reveals how the firm’sfeature-rich digital tool-set isbreaking down boundaries inthe public sector

BREAKING DOWN BOUNDARIESWITH DIGITAL

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Membership growth, to date, has been largely driven bypeer to peer recommendation. However, more recentlyorganisations such as the Cabinet Office, HealthEducation England and Public Health England havefollowed founding partners at the Local GovernmentAssociation and the Improvement Service in Scotland inestablishing their own branded networks on KnowledgeHub, to support their business objectives and to tap intothe connected intelligence of the wider community.

With the recent announcement of its appointment asa platform partner of 100 Resilient Cities – pioneeredby the Rockefeller Foundation, Knowledge Hub seeksto increase its global presence by supporting cities inengaging local communities on resilience initiatives.

Arguably, the blueprint for building online communitiesto unite resources around common goals is the ScottishPublic Services Network, facilitated by the ImprovementService in Scotland. With over 20,000 users across 800groups of interest the network supports local, nationaland cross-sector projects ranging from migrationresettlement and public health reorganisation to digitaltransformation. Sarah Gadsden, Interim CEO describesKnowledge Hub as invaluable in joining up the manystakeholder bodies involved in the numerous initiativessupported by the Improvement Service.

Knowledge Hub is free to public service and not-for-profit organisations and their employees who canaccess the platform at www.khub.net/sign-up .

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INCREASING PRODUCTIVITYTHROUGH ONLINE COLLABORATION

For public sector professionals, Knowledge Hub is theplace to go to collaborate online.

For some, ‘collaboration’ might seem a tad soft orlacking in focus and a more social than professionalactivity. This isn’t so for the Knowledge Hubcommunity, where collaboration is synonymous withincreased productivity. Whether sourcing content forresearch, seeking a rapid answer to a local challengethat is likely to already have been solved elsewhere,or crowdsourcing input to service redesign, the resultis increased productivity.

One recent example is the collaborative approachtaken by Scottish local authorities who came togetherto collectively respond to the GDPR regulations thatrecently came into force. Their shared approach tothis common challenge was facilitated by the Digital

Office for Scottish Local Government whoseReadiness Project helped to remove duplication andsave more than £1 million. Knowledge Hub was usedby 30 of the 32 Scottish local authorities participatingin the Readiness Project to share challenges and findcollective solutions to implementing GDPR. The DigitalOffice reported that this helped to sizably reduce anyduplication of effort and ensure a consistentapproach between the 30 councils in the LocalGovernment Digital Partnership.

“WE TALK ABOUT OUR DESIRE TO MAKEA DIFFERENCE AS A BUSINESS AND IT

FEELS AS IF WE CAN NOW ACHIEVE THISON A GLOBAL LEVEL BY INCREASING

THE PRODUCTIVITY OF 100 RC MEMBERCITIES THROUGH COLLABORATION.”

The need to stretch limited public service resources isadding momentum to the growth of the KnowledgeHub community. The reported successes, such as thosedescribed in Scotland provide a growing globalaudience with tangible evidence of the rapid andsignificant return on investment. The use of KnowledgeHub to harness collective approaches to commonglobal challenges is fast emerging.

Jason Fahy, CEO, KnowledgeHub explains how organisationsare increasing productivitythrough collaboration

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landslide related occurrences, providing support torebuild property and in many cases relocate citizens.Further engineering work is underway with federalsupport to stabilise landslide-prone neighbourhoods,but rapid population growth increases the possibilityof future risks. Salvador will launch their KnowledgeHub network in early June and begin to engage theircommunities in tackling identified shocks and stressescovering crime & violence, disease outbreak,inadequate educational systems, landslide, populationgrowth & overpopulation, poverty and rainfall flooding.

“KNOWLEDGE HUB WAS USED BY 30 OFTHE 32 SCOTTISH LOCAL AUTHORITIES

PARTICIPATING IN THE READINESSPROJECT TO SHARE CHALLENGES AND

FIND COLLECTIVE SOLUTIONS TOIMPLEMENTING GDPR. THE DIGITAL

OFFICE REPORTED THAT THIS HELPEDTO SIZABLY REDUCE ANY DUPLICATIONOF EFFORT AND ENSURE A CONSISTENTAPPROACH BETWEEN THE 30 COUNCILS

IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT DIGITALPARTNERSHIP.”

Fahy commented that Knowledge Hub is extremelyproud of its association with 100 Resilient Cities andexcited that Salvador has moved quickly to adopt theplatform. He explained that the technology will bedeployed in Brazilian to enable engagement in thenative language. We talk about our desire to make adifference as a business and it feels as if we can nowachieve this on a global level by increasing theproductivity of 100 RC member cities throughcollaboration.

Knowledge Hub is free to public service and not-for-profit organisations and their employees who canaccess the platform at www.khub.net/sign-up .

With the recent announcement of its appointment as aplatform partner of 100 Resilient Cities – pioneered bythe Rockefeller Foundation, Knowledge Hub seeks tosupport the 100RC network of Chief Resilience Officerswith the implementation of resilience strategies bymaking it easy to engage with stakeholders, partnersand local communities in the various initiatives.

Salvador, in Brazil, has been the first of the 100 ResilientCities to seize the opportunity. Salvador is a vibrantcoastal city with strong shipping, industrialmanufacturing and tourism sectors. Its population of2.7 million has been swelled by an influx of domesticmigration that has taxed public services includingeducation, healthcare and transportation, while theensuing overpopulation has increased unemployment,informal settlements and poverty. New initiatives havebeen enacted to increase foreign investment to increasejob opportunities, while a government agency wascreated to provide job training and assist in connectingemployers with residents searching for work.

Salvador experiences regular heavy rainfall that canlead to devastating urban landslides. During the last10 years, the Municipal Civil Defence and othergovernment agencies have assisted in over 19,000

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