Week 5: Turning designs into deliverables
This week we’ve been turning the ideas behind each of our summer projects into more focussed documents and deliverables.
Digital Apprenticeships
The week before last, we shared with you that we met with Cate McLaurin at Hackney (the lead borough on the digital apprenticeships project) to learn more about their approach and to map out next steps to achieving our ambition of offering at least 100 digital apprenticeships by September 2020.
Setting up an apprenticeship scheme can seem complex and daunting. So we set out to first understand what boroughs need, before deciding on a solution (e.g. creating a Playbook for Digital Apprenticeships). To that end, over the summer, we’ll be conducting a discovery phase, as outlined here. To clarify our thinking on how to approach this, we’ve used the same template we’d use on the Digital Marketplace. Readers’ thoughts and ideas on this are welcome.
Seamless Wi-Fi
We circulated our guidance on how to implement GovWifi, Govroam, and Eduroam in LOTI’s 15 member boroughs. We worked with Fabio Negro at Camden and the team at JISC to finalise the content and we’ll be spending the coming weeks tracking and supporting the roll-out of all three networks.
Information Governance
We spent much of the week preparing for the Information Governance (IG) workshop will be held on 6 September, and will be led by Camden.
We compared the Norfolk and Tri-Borough Information Sharing Protocols (ISPs) and identified similarities and differences in their content. This was a useful exercise as it allowed us to differentiate between legally and non-legally binding content that might feature in an ISP for London or any subsequent Information Sharing Agreements (ISAs). It was on this basis that we drafted an example Information Sharing Protocol for London to help frame our workshop discussions.
Data Analytics
We met with Paul Hodgson, GIS & Infrastructure Manager at the Greater London Authority (GLA), to discuss how LOTI will collaborate with the GLA on future data analytics projects. We agreed that LOTI will vet project ideas for their feasibility and project manage them, with the data science and technical capacity provided by the GLA. Paul subsequently shared with us a list of pan-London data analytics ideas, generated by London boroughs, which we’ll review as part of our Future Project Ideas Bank.
Future Project Ideas Bank
Thank you to everyone who has already submitted a suggestion to our Future Project Ideas Bank. There are still three more weeks to get your thinking caps on before the deadline on 6 September, after which ideas will be reviewed for consideration at our next LOTI All-member meeting on 20 September.
Borough Visits
We continued our LOTI member borough visits this week to Tower Hamlets, Kingston and Sutton councils.
LOTI learned about Tower Hamlets’ commitment to digital inclusion. Statistics show that there’s a skills gap, meaning that there are currently more vacancies in the borough than there are unemployed residents. Tower Hamlets will be responding by investing in skills work paths that are intended to equip all residents with the right digital skills to move from the job they currently have to one that’s higher-paid and highly-skilled.
The Kingston and Sutton visit focussed on the councils’ shift from providing transactional digital services to taking on a more user-centred approach to public service provision. Both councils hope to work with LOTI to share lessons and do things together with other London boroughs for better and faster results.
What’s next?
Having kicked off a lot of activity related to our first set of projects and initiatives, next week we’ll be focussing on project delivery and planning ahead to ensure that we have everything in place for a busy September.
Thanks for reading!
