Getting Ready for Knowledge Management: A UK Local Government Case Study

Knowledge management in local government organisations presents two challenges not found in for-profit organisations: a focus on efficiency savings and a wide ranging service provision, unlike anything found in the private sector. For instance, a pharmaceutical organisation might be focused purely on drug development, whereas a local government organisation has services ranging from the provision of leisure facilities, to social care responsibilities and education requirements. Coupled with the fact that local government tend to be less agile than other organisations this presents a substantial challenge to knowledge management initiatives. This paper presents an initial scoping of a case study of a local government organisation in the UK and their efforts to prepare to become a knowing council. From the initial assessment of the council, this paper presents an initial assessment of the current culture, the current information management strategies and makes recommendations for conducting a full case study analysis, necessary before a wide scale adoption of KM. Using observation and document analysis, this research has found that the council has a clear role based culture with evidence of 'empire building'. This is reinforced by the current technology architecture, although projects are underway to share information more consistently across the whole council. The current information management strategies are clearly based on an extended records management philosophy, a fact reflected by the heavy use of the electronic records and document management system. The recommendations proposed by this research is a novel approach to bring the council into the knowledge era and focuses on the creation of a knowledge sharing culture, enabled by the employees. The end goal of this research, whilst outside the scope of this research is the creation of a knowing council that effectively shares knowledge to support innovation and efficiency savings.