LOTI: Weeknote 38

Using data to support the vulnerable

At our session last week with data analysts in London boroughs, we were informed of critical needs they had in relation to accessing particular data sets, one of which is free school meals (FSM) data.

At the moment, boroughs are not able to identify vulnerable children in receipt of free school meals who live in their borough but attend schools in a different local authority. Working in collaboration with the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) data team, we were able to collate aggregated free school meals and Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan datasets that can be mapped alongside boroughs’ own data to help solve this problem.

While the GLA data shows total figures for how many children in receipt of FSM attend school outside their home borough, council staff need to be able to support specific households. Adhering to our own 7-Step Information Governance (IG) process, we worked with the Information for Governance for London (IGfL) to draft an Information Sharing Agreement (ISA) that enables London boroughs to securely, legally and ethically share data on specific children during the period of the Covid crisis

While boroughs could share this data directly between each other, that’s likely to become complicated given that children living in some boroughs can attend schools in up to 11 other local authority areas. This week, we are therefore working with the London Datastore team to create a secure space on the Datastore for sharing the data. Prior to kicking that off, we will meet again with data analysts tomorrow to discuss what approach will work best for their needs.

For more information on our collaboration with the GLA’s London Datastore team, the full summary of last week is available here, and the show and tell presentation is available here.

Boroughs’ responses to Covid-19

Over the past few weeks, we have been informed about some amazing work being undertaken by our member boroughs in relation to service redesign and smart use of technology. Keeping with one of our workstreams to support boroughs to share and reuse, we organised a show and tell for boroughs to share how their digital teams have been responding to COVID-19.

We heard from David Grasty (Head of Digital Transformation) about Kingston and Sutton’s hub that’s been developed to help residents find out what they can do to take care of themselves and their local community during this time. Paul Tait from Lambeth shared information about their food delivery service, which is organised in collaboration with local Voluntary and Community Services using Sharepoint and Power BI. Mark Lumley (Director of Digital and IT) from Hounslow shared how the majority of the workforce had been supported to work remotely at pace and at scale. Similarly, Cate McLaurin (Head of Delivery) shared how HackIT was supporting council staff to make the best use of their devices to work from anywhere at any time, as well as mobilising the team and volunteers to deliver medicine and food to over 900 people. Emma McGowan (Head of Digital Transformation) from Camden and Dominic Campbell (CEO of FutureGov) shared details about Beacon, a platform being developed with Camden and Hackney for councils and voluntary organisations to manage supply and demand during the coronavirus pandemic to support vulnerable residents.

We also discussed boroughs’ upcoming challenges and opportunities for them to work together. Due to the pace at which most digital teams are currently working, the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are now exploring the best means of supporting their teams’ resilience as they move from a sprint to a marathon. In response, LOTI will be exploring how best to support collaboration between boroughs as they seek to move into a recovery phase over the coming weeks.

Boroughs also shared their collective aspiration that the crisis responses they put in place leave a positive and lasting legacy. Based on feedback during the call, Eddie sketched out some ideas for what that legacy might look like in this blog.

The full presentation from the show and tell is available here.

Supporting our future digital leaders

During these difficult times, we are conscious that some of our Digital Apprentices are now working remotely, and may not have access to the same opportunities as a result. Keeping to our commitment to support the next generation of digital leaders in London’s local government, we collaborated with Microsoft to deliver our first virtual Challenge Day focussing on developing their professional careers during Covid-19 using digital tools.

The session consisted of a walk-through demo delivered by colleagues from LinkedIn Learning, sharing how our Digital Apprentices could create and develop their professional profiles on the platform, and promote their professional brand online. This session was a huge success with over 50 participants joining from over 10 different councils and housing associations.

We are now working in partnership with Microsoft to design a programme of online sessions focussing on personal and professional development, with workshops ranging from using other online tools to support apprentices’ your work and sharing tips and tricks on making the most of their time while remote working. These sessions will be delivered on a monthly basis and will be open to all Digital Apprentices in LOTI member boroughs. More details to follow.

This Week

This week, the LOTI Central Team will continue to work in collaboration with GLA, MHCLG’s Digital Team and others to support London boroughs’ responses to Covid-19. In addition, we will be meeting with colleagues in the Local Government Association (LGA) to explore how we might support those responsible for commissioning Assistive Technology (AT) devices in London boroughs to make decisions confidently and effectively and attending the first Digital Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) Tool Planning Session.

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