Capita plc has secured 17 contract renewals on the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN), a framework that delivers a single shared network infrastructure across Scotland’s public sector.

This year’s survey of public sector workers using the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN), administered by Capita, shows that 94% are satisfied overall, an improvement on last year’s 92% score.

Between the collapse of 83% of the UK’s department stores, consumers moving online and many high street shops now becoming obsolete, town centres are no longer the beating heart of local economies they once were.

Infographic: How to maximise community benefits through regeneration

Hearing that we had achieved 98% overall satisfaction was probably the first time in my professional career where I have had an emotional response.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the decline of our high streets and town centres.

At a recent roundtable in partnership with Wired, Doug Brown, Head of Data, Cyber and AI Guild and Chief Data Scientist of Capita Consulting, was joined by Lisa Talia Moretti, a digital sociologist at the Ministry of Justice; Reid Darby, innovation lead at Golden Valley Development in Cheltenham; Carly Kind, Director at the Ada Lovelace Institute and Tavi Kotka, an engineer/entrepreneur and former Chief Information Officer for the Estonian government to discuss data, identity and the digital citizen.

Capita and the Local Government Chronicle hosted a webinar to bring together local government experts and discuss how to secure funding to help revitalise our high streets.

Back in the Thatcher years of the 1980s, the explosion of out-of-town shopping centres arguably presented the biggest threat to our traditional town centres.

Town centres and high streets have traditionally been the focus of urban life, whether this is somewhere like London - often described as ‘a collection of villages’ - or a market or regional town.