LOTI: Weeknote 39

LOTI and GLA collaboration

In our last weeknote, we shared how boroughs were using data to model vulnerability. One specific challenge they raised concerned identifying vulnerable children who receive free school meals (FSM) who attend a school outside of their borough. Last week, working with the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) London Datastore team, we were able to provide boroughs with aggregated data sets showing how many of their children attend school in other boroughs. We also collaborated with the Information Governance for London group (IGfL) to draft and finalise a common Information Sharing Agreement (ISA) that enables London boroughs to share with each other basic information about children who receive free school meals, which can be used solely for the purposes of providing them with support during the crisis. We then met with the data analysts in London boroughs to share these data sets and the ISA, and identify any next steps.

We’ll be holding a session tomorrow with data analysts to explore other challenges they’re dealing with and share what approaches they’re taking or intend to take, using data to respond to challenges during this period.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been meeting with policy teams at the GLA who have helped us to identify potential leads for triaging specific in-kind offers of support from businesses who wish to help boroughs and their communities with their Covid response. In relation to the use case we mentioned last week, we were testing the process for sourcing 250 laptops/tech devices for community support hubs. We’ve created a new content page and web form that has the potential to curate the quality and type of in-kind offers we receive. This week, we’ll be circulating these to organisations in our respective networks.

For more information on our collaboration with the GLA’s London Datastore team, our latest show and tell presentation is available here.

Supporting innovation in social care

We met with the Local Government Association (LGA) to talk through the Social Care Digital Innovation Accelerator (SCDIA) 2020/21 programme and the Virtual Care Technology Delivery Planning Tool they’d developed with ReThink Partners.

SCDIA offers match-funding (up to £300,000) to help councils collaborate on digital projects that could help initiatives that improve information sharing to support the most vulnerable within our communities. The call for ideas closed on Friday and we’ll keep you all informed of any successful London bids.

We have been approached by boroughs who are keen to learn more about how their peers are organising Assistive Technology (AT) devices for vulnerable residents during this time. The LGA’s Virtual Care Technology Delivery Planning Tool has been created to support councils to develop their care technology approaches in response to Covid-19 and will be launched by the end of this month. This tool will help those responsible in boroughs to identify their business requirements and make confident, effective and timely decisions, and will also support decision-makers to understand technology options on the market. For more information please contact LGA via email.

Digital Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)

We attended the first meeting of those involved in co-creating a new Digital DPIA tool. The meeting, run by Cofund & Collaborate to Innovation (CC2i) kicked off with partners sharing what processes they had in place, and what their pain points were, before moving on to identifying the desirable features of the tool and co-designing the work packages.

With several urgent data collaboration projects arising during the Covid-19 crisis, we’ve been reminded of the importance of having a swift and effective means of conducting Information Governance (IG) across boroughs. We see the development of this new DPIA tool as a key part of that and will engage with the IG community throughout this process. It’s important for us to ensure that this tool is effective at assessing and managing risk, and can be embedded into boroughs’ processes.

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’ll be hosting a live demo of the newly developed wireframes for the next phase of LOTI’s City Tools for our member boroughs, holding the first in a series of regular virtual meet-ups with Data Analysts in London boroughs, and joining our IoTWeek partner (Sharing Cities) to discuss Smart Tech and harnessing data for the public good. To join the discussion, hosted by Reuters, please register here.

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