Birmingham City Council Digital City Program

Accelerating inclusive sustainable economic growth enabled by city-wide collaboration and leadership

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Seamless, fast connectivity and easy access to data are two growth triggers for thriving, innovation-led cities. Birmingham is unlocking both through smarter governance to create a predicted $1.3 billion (£1 billion) growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and build a launchpad for successful, digitally-enabled entrepreneurs, businesses and communities, and in turn gain international recognition as a leading digital city.

21.7 %

of people in the West Midlands are non-users of the internet, compared to 12.6% in the South East of England
56 %

of the global population do not have the essential digital skills required for work
$ 1.3 B (£1B)

predicted improvement to GDP from improved connectivity and access to data

Birmingham City Council introduced its Digital City Program to provide institutions, communities and businesses with the digital infrastructure, data platforms and enablement initiatives required to thrive in the future, from citywide fiber and 5G connectivity to digital twins, data sharing and support for community initiatives. In a rapidly digitalizing world, the Council saw this as vital to supporting the city’s businesses and communities to succeed and grow.

Dialing up results through city-wide collaboration

This innovation-led program is centered around an integrated roadmap comprising an initial set of projects that are deliverable now alongside a candidate pipeline of medium-term projects. Jacobs and Connected Places Catapult undertook extensive engagement and consultation with a wide range of city stakeholders to develop the roadmap. Instead of focusing only on projects that the Council can deliver itself, the roadmap also reflects a broader set of initiatives that city stakeholders can collectively deliver together. This collaboration increases the program’s scale and reach and unlocks access to more talent and technology.

We developed a multi-tiered, cross-city governance and delivery model which has been implemented to oversee these projects' delivery and enable the program's ongoing evolution and extension under the Digital Birmingham initiative. This tailored model aims to establish a coalition of stakeholders from multiple organizations to drive Birmingham forward as a digital city, holding the Digital City Program accountable for delivering against the city’s objectives. The model also aims to constantly identify and drive forward new projects aligned to the city’s objectives and secure the required resources to support the program.

Aligning stakeholders and accountability to gain momentum

The governance and delivery structure includes three main tiers of activity:

Birmingham Digital Partnership

This comprises digital leaders from the city’s major public, private and third-sector organizations (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups). With overall accountability for delivery, this partnership sets the strategic direction for the program, inspiring and facilitating digital initiatives. It reports to the City Board, established for several years.

Working Groups

This comprises operational level representatives from organizations across the city and focus on key areas of activity, including cross-city data sharing and skills. They also work to identify new initiatives emerging from Birmingham’s communities and business ecosystem and bring them to the attention of the Partnership.

Delivery Resources

The governance structure has also led to the recruitment of a Digital Project Delivery capability within the Council, and partners are contributing to a secretariat for the program and supporting the development, funding and delivery of projects.

Empowering digital ambition with market-leading governance

Together, the layers in the governance structure integrate the digital challenges, capabilities, programs and funding for the city into a single model. It ensures digital ambition is not only considered across every facet of the local authority, but also more widely across major institutions in the city. It promotes iterative engagement and continuous conversation with city stakeholders, developing widespread buy-in and support. This integration and coordination will enable the city to act more cohesively and effectively towards the digital agenda, paving the way for Birmingham to become a leading digital city, where technology plays an active role in achieving its priorities of Inclusive Growth and Route to Zero.

“The collaborative approach in developing the Digital City Roadmap has been pivotal in establishing the key initiatives needed to accelerate the City’s sustainable economic growth opportunities. We are really pleased that the Roadmap has stimulated and amplified further partner activities and builds on our Digital Birmingham commitment to position the City as a leading international digital City.”

Raj Mack

Head of Digital City and Innovation, Birmingham City Council

Key team members

Rick Robinson

Dr. Rick Robinson is Director and Global Principal for Smart, Connected and Secure Cities and Places for Jacobs. He advises cities, infrastructure operators, property developers and investors on the use of technology to improve buildings, infrastructure, places, communities and business and organizational performance. Rick has led the delivery of digital strategies for some of the largest developments in the U.K., Europe and the Middle East, representing billions of dollars of investment.
Kurt Moroney

Kurt Moroney, Associate Director of Smart Places is an experienced Digital Infrastructure and Smart Places Consultant with a proven record in developing, delivering and managing a wide range of programs and projects across public and private sector investment. He leads content development of digital outputs for multi-$billion regional and city developments and masterplans globally.
Hannah Griffiths

Hannah is a widely experienced Smart City expert with proven experience in planning, delivering and managing a wide range of digital and innovation projects and programmes, across the built environment, infrastructure and public service sectors. She has experience in strategy development, business transformation, investment case creation and emerging technology market analysis.
Arushi Malhotra

Arushi Malhotra is an urbanist, with a drive for enhancing the relationship between urban environments, infrastructure and people to create social, economic and environmental value for all. She sees huge opportunity in embedding an interdisciplinary and systems thinking approach in urban planning and processes of city making more widely. She has worked on multiple large-scale regeneration projects across geographies and contributed to developing smart and digital strategies for cities.