Reflecting on VIPER and looking at future phases

In the last few days I’ve seen some encouraging posts about collaboration and sharing across local government, and Will Callaghan who is an expert in this area is pulling together a register of 'Software Partnerships'. The latest addition is VIPER, which has prompted a bit of reflection.

VIPER (Vulnerability Indicators for Properties in Emergency Response) began life several years ago in Cumbria as an idea the Cumbria Local Resilience Forum and my team developed. The aim was simple but ambitious: to help responders make better, faster decisions by understanding which properties may contain vulnerable people before and during an emergency incident incident.

From the outset this was a collaborative effort. Cumbria LRF backed the work, and Alison Love has been a project sponsor and driving force from the very beginning. Lisa Nixon played a big role in shaping the first iteration of VIPER, built to support Cumbria using our Liberty Create low code platform and telling its story, including when it went on to win award recognition in 2023.

As local government in Cumbria has evolved, VIPER has evolved too. The project has followed me from Cumbria County Council, through Westmorland and Furness where Alison Love (Cumbria LRF Manager) and I had a successful Local Digital Fund round 6 bid to scale VIPER for all LRFs to use by collaborating with 8 other councils with incredible delivery partnership support from Tom and Seb at Tailwind Digital, and now into Cumberland Council. Each phase has built on what came before, learning from real-world use, maturing the data model, and strengthening the governance around it.

The current phase is an important step. Cumberland Council will act as the infrastructure and legal data-sharing host for VIPER, helping it move from a successful prototype into a sustainable, open source software-as-a-service platform that can be accessed by Local Resilience Forums nationally.

That progression matters. It shows how locally-grown digital work, developed with practitioners and responders, can scale responsibly when it is given the right sponsorship, partnerships and long-term stewardship.

I’m proud of how far VIPER has come, grateful to everyone who has contributed at different stages, and excited about what it can become next.