Week 9: Future project ideas and potential solutions
Last week, we agreed on the next steps for our work on Information Governance, conducted another four borough visits, and read through your submissions to our Project Ideas Bank. Here are the details…
Information Governance (IG) Workshop
As mentioned in our last weeknote, on 6 September we held a workshop for our project on IG, to review ways in which we can make it easier for boroughs to share data when it is legal, ethical, secure and appropriate to do so. You can see the IG Workshop slides we used, and also read our full summary report.
The summary report highlights ten actions that were recommended, which will be reviewed by LOTI boroughs at our upcoming workshop this Friday.
Among those was a decision to trial the use of the Information Sharing Gateway (ISG). You may recall that LOTI learned a lot in Week 7 about ISG and its strengths in standardising the way organisations create and use Infomation Sharing Agreements. Workshop participants agreed to use ISG on LOTI projects that entail data sharing over the next 12 months.
It was also agreed that better engagement was needed with IG Leads. We will be identifying those responsible for making IG decisions in each borough and inviting them to co-design a ‘concept review’ process that involves them right from the start of future data-sharing projects.
LOTI Borough Visits
The LOTI central team travelled far and wide last week to visit Greenwich, Camden, Ealing and Newham.
We met the Royal Borough of Greenwich team, led by Trevor Dorling, at Ravensbourne University next to the O2. Greenwich has both an in-house team “Digital Greenwich”, which has played a prominent role in the European smart city programme Sharing Cities, and DG Cities, a council-owned company which conducts commercial work related to smart cities. In all these activities they have developed deep expertise in creating digitally-enabled places, using Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, data analytics and behavioural nudges for everything from optimising the use of electric vehicles to reducing the energy consumption of housing estates.
At Camden, we learned from Ed Garcez about two major strands of work. The first is about getting the plumbing right. Like many councils, Camden is working to move beyond its legacy infrastructure by upgrading its networks, making smart use of cloud and rolling out Office 365. Unlike most councils, they are offering virtually all staff a decision about what device they want to use. The latter is based on a recognition that different roles benefit from a different technology, and giving staff a say in their technology is an important part of showing them that they are valued. The second initiative is Camden 2025, a process of codesigning the future of the borough with citizens. Among much else, from a technology point of view, there will be work on assistive technology and social care, and initiatives to help break down barriers between service siloes (e.g. making it easy for a social worker to easily share details of a broken light with a housing repairs team).
At Ealing, we heard from Kieran Read and Kevin Griffin about how they intend to raise awareness of the varying opportunities that LOTI could present to their colleagues. Ealing is keen to tap into LOTI as a resource to experiment and innovate. One of their key aspirations is to improve digital inclusion. They suggested that LOTI might want to explore the possibility of extending 5G to those who might not otherwise be able to afford it. To that end, there may be scope for councils to leverage their street furniture with commercial providers to ensure wide 5G coverage.
Our last visit of the week was to meet with Priya Javeri in Newham, where we found out more about how they are investing in modernising and stabilising their infrastructure and moving to a cloud-first culture across the organisation. They are also planning on updating their current website and will be working with service leads to ensure that the content meets the needs of their residents. Newham is also keen to work on IoT projects and cited some of their successful partnerships with commercial providers to date, that might inspire how LOTI works with the private sector going forward.
LOTI’s Future Project Ideas Bank
Thanks again to everyone who submitted ideas into the LOTI Project Ideas Bank. We closed the first round with 45 submissions. Our members will review these at our next workshop on 20 September and choose those to be delivered in the next delivery cycle.
As we read the submissions last week, it became clear that not every suggestion fits neatly into a six-week project of three fortnightly sprints in the way we had initially envisioned in our ways of working plan. As our members review each project idea, they will consider which of six different approaches might best deliver results.
Projects — LOTI manages projects in one or more six-week phases of three 2 week sprints.
Initiatives — LOTI central team collaborates with colleagues in member boroughs to run one-off events/workshops or undertake primary or secondary research.
Commissions — LOTI commissions external organisations to conduct specific projects/research or create content.
Representation — LOTI central team represents member boroughs’ interests and views in strategic pan-London meetings, workshops, and fora.
Campaigns — LOTI creates thought-leadership content and runs targeted campaigns that align with LOTI workstreams.
Signposting — LOTI central team highlights resources and opportunities that benefit our members, including funding opportunities, the latest technology innovations, best practice examples from other cities etc..
What’s next?
This week we will be focusing on:
- Preparing for and running a great workshop with LOTI member boroughs, agreeing on our next wave of projects.
- Continuing with project delivery.
- Conducting our last round of borough visits to Waltham Forest and Croydon.
Thanks for reading!
