Oli Sharpe
About Go Meta
Consulting for local authorities
I set up Go Meta in 2003 in order to provide IT consulting services to local authorities.
Each local authority (LA) is like a complex merger between a dozen or so businesses that, in many ways, have little relation to each other. From building control, through to children's services, libraries and parking, an LA has a wide range of information that it has to manage in complex often highly prescribed ways.
As if the internal concerns of a single LA weren't complex enough, no LA acts in isolation from the other arms of government. The need to work and share information with other public bodies goes from neighbouring LAs through to other local services (such as the police and health service) and of course to central government.
All of this information management and sharing has to be done within the legal frameworks of Data Protection and Freedom of Information to name but two. Records of business are generated all the time, some of which can be destroyed immediately, some need to be kept for a number of years, whilst others need to be kept permanently. These records usually sit on tens of different systems from just as many different software suppliers belonging to different departments throughout the LA.
Using IT effectively can be difficult enough at the best of times, but with all this business complexity it is no wonder that public bodies so often end up with failed IT projects.
Through my consulting services I aim to help my clients cut through the complexity of new government agendas and the hype of systems vendors to see clearly in what ways IT can and can't help solve specific problems.